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PROCEEDINGS 






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Bradford, Merrimack Co., N. H. 

On Tuesday September, 27, 1887, 
Incorporated September 27, 1787. 



BRADFORD, N. H. 
A. P. HOWE & SON, PUBLISHERS. 

1887. 



.!57^6t 



^tl^or 



PREPARATION FOR, AND PROCEEDINGS 
IN CONNECTION WITH THE CEN- 
TENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



At the Animal Meeting, March 8, 1887, the town voted to 
celebrate its Centennial Anniversar}^ and voted the sum of two 
hundred dollars to defray the expenses connected therewith, and 
chose a committee to arrange and execute all business necessary 
towards its successful issue. This committee was as follows : — 
Charles F. Davis, Hokack K. Martin, and George S. Morgan. 

The committee held their first meeting in June and chose Charles 
F. Davis Secretary and Treasurer. They met as often as occasion 
required, and invited Hon. Bainbridge Wadleigh and Hon. John Q. 
A. Brackett to deliver addresses. Mrs. Frank Cressy of Concord, 
was invited to prepare a poem for the occasion. All responded 
heartily to the duties assigned them. Subcommittees were appoint- 
ed, and with unsparing labor and care we made ready for the day. 

Two hundred and seventy requests, in form as follows, were 
sent by mail. 

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Bradford, N. H. June 27, 1887. 
To the citizens of Bradford : 

The Centennial Committee respectfully request that 
each family in town should send to the Post Master in said Brad- 
ford the names and addresses of all relatives and friends, who were 
former residents of said town, at as early date as possible, so as 
to enable your committee to send to each a letter of invitation to 
attend the celebi-ation which will take place September, 27, 1887. 
Respectfully, 
CHARLES F. DAVIS, ) ^, 
HORACE K. MARTIN, ., ^'J"^^"!"^^^ ?" the 
GEORGE S. MORGAN, ) ^^^^^^^'^^ Celebration. 



Tlie names caine in vcr}' liberally fi-om Ifie interested citizens, and 
five luindri'd invitations, in form as follows were sent bv niaiL 



Bradford, N. H., July, 1887, 
Mr. 

You are cordially invited to be present and unite with us in celebrat- 
ing the One Hundredth Anniversary of the incorporation of our town. 

The reunion of former residents of this town, relatives, friends, and 
their descendents, will be a pleasant and important feature, including" 
as it will a renewal of friendship, interchanges of pleasant reminis- 
cences, and a recital of facts, which will serve to brighten the mem- 
ories of the past and awaken a patriotic pride in the future prosperity 
of this Grand Old Town. 

Nestled as it is in the two valleys of Sunapee and Massassecum, 
and surrounded by the eternal hills of Nature's own protection, her 
sons and daughters can contribute at this time such a tribute as will 
fill a page in its history that will be remembered by its people forever. 

Trusting we shall receive your letter of acceptance at an early date, 
we remain, very truly yours, 

Charles F. Davis, ) r- ^ • 1 r- i x 
Horace K. Martin <^^;!^^^^"^f,?^'t''^j'°" „ 
George S. Morgan, \ *^^™- ^f Bradford, N. H. 

The celebration was held at the north village of the town. The 
Baptist Society kindly gave the use of the church and vestry, which 
were very tastefully and approi)riately decorated for the occasion 
with evergreens and flowers, and behind the pulpit was the word 
"CENTENNIAL," and the dates, "1787: - 1,S87 :" in evergreen 
letters, surrounded by the American flag gracefully dra{)ed from 
the ceiling, and upon the walls were placed numerous pictures of 
citizens of Bradford who have made their names famous in American 
history. 

One room in the Town House was used as an antiquarian 
room under the charge of Mr. Artemas W. Chellis. It is justice 
to say that Mr. Chellis managed this department with remarkably 
good taste, and it was a very interesting feature of the occasion, 
many of the relics being very ancient. A list of the articles, and 
the names of their exhibitors, may be found below. 

Exhibited by Mrs. Mason W. Tappan : — 
Saddle and Trappings, used by her illustrious husband, in the 



bite IJcliflliou. al.-o his military hat, and the sword carried by him 
while ill ((niiinnnd of the first New Ilamiishire Volunteers. 

These articles ai'e, ])erhaps, interesting more for their identifica- 
tion with the irreat events they so vividly call to mind, than for their 
great anti(inity. 

Exhibited by Addison S. Cressy : — 
A sword cajjtnred from a British marine, in Paul Jones' encoun- 
ter with the United States ship Seraphis ; a shot fired into Bunlver 
Hill. l>y the Britisli, in the memorable battle of June 17, 1775; 
an iron vice, made l»y l^ichard Cressy, and carried by iiim through 
the l\evoliitionaiy War; a screw driver used in the same war; 
the door handle of the old town house at Bradford Center, made 
by Richard Cressy in 171^7. and ornamented with the tigures of 
two angels, and beaiing the following inscrii)tion : — 

•'While Truth and Benevolence reign within, the angels keep 
the door." Eye glasses, set in leather, and enclosed in a wooden 
box, sui)iiosed to be three hundred years old ; an old tooth puller, 
formerly used by Richard Cressy, and so old that it has no teeth ; 
two passes from the jjen of General Stark, of Revolutionary fame, 
well written and legible, but yellow with age. 

Exhibited by Mr. A. W. Chellis :— 
Ancient block tin tea-pot and water-pot, nearly one hundred 
years old ; a i)air of brass andirons, very ancient ; very curious 
table, more than a century old ; very ancient pewter i)latter. 

Exhibited by Augusta H. Eaton. — 
Ancient (nith ; horaesjiun table-cloth, used at Congregational ser- 
vice in the old meeting house at Bradford Center in 180G ; catalogue 
of officers and students of Bradford Academy, Benjamin F. Wal- 
lace, instructor ; gchool record of the school district at Bradford 
Center, for the year 1837, one hundred pupils ; framed photograph 
of Mr. and Mrs. P^lisha Eaton ; picture of Elisha Eaton's home- 
stead, painted V)y Augusta H. Eaton ; India ink mai) of the world, 
executed by Eliza P. Eaton, in 18;52 ; silhouette of Eliza P. Eaton ; 
coat worn by Mr. Chellis at the centeimial, and formerly owned 
by Elisha Eaton, seventy-five years ago. 

Exhibited by Mrs. L. B. Courser : — 
A large pewter platter, owned l)y Daniel Webster's father one hun- 
dred and twenty-five years ago ; a footstool one hundred years old. 



Exhibited by L. B. Butman : — 
A wanning pan one hundred and fifty years ohl. 

Exhibited by Mrs. Daniel Carr: — 
Homespun linen, one hundred years old. 

Exhibited by Frank T. Cai-r:— 
Old coins, flask, and bottle, very ancient and curious. 

Exhibited by Mrs. S. 15. C'raddock : — 
A centennial nuig, very ancient and suooestive of home l>rewed 
beer, and a pewter platter two hundred and fifty years old. 

Exhibited by Mrs. N. A. Ripley: — 
A plate seventy-five years old, and a tea-i)ot which looked as 
though it might have held the ^ 'soothing beverage" as long ago as 
the great "Boston tea party." 

Exhibited by Mr. Oi Hall : — 
A spinning wheel, very ancient and well preserved, and a l»it 
stock. 

Exhibited by Mr. Ira Eaton : — 
Two oil lamps, that dispensed the "light of other days" before 
petroleum was known. 

Exhibited by Mrs. C. L. T. Carr: — 
Lady's stays, supposed to have been worn two hundred years ago. 

Exhibited by Mrs. G, S. Morgan : — 
Two homespun handkerchiefs, of substantial merit and fine 
workmanship. 

Exhibited by Mrs. D. P. P]merson : — 
About thirty different articles, very ancient, and many of them 
elegant. 

Exhibited by Mrs. Sarah E. Buswell : — 
A large round pewter platter, stami)ed on the bottom with the 
word, "London" and the figures, "IGDo." 

There was also another platter on exhibition, (exhibitor un- 
known,) supposed to be two hundred and fifty-six years old, which 
was on exhibition at the centennial celebration at Philadelphia. 

The above articles were all on exhibition, tastefully and con- 
veniently arranged, and added much to the interest whi(!h the occa- 
sion awakened. Much credit is due those who had the matter in 



charofe for the efficient manner in which they discharged their duties, 
and tiie readiness witli which they answered the inquiries of visitors. 

The f(j()d for the invited guests and the assembled multitude was 
liberally and bountifully suiiplied by the inhabitants of tl^e town. 

The committee purchased the meats and a portion of the white 
bread ; ample provision was made, and no one could with justice 
find fault. The town hall was set witli tables sutlicient to accom- 
modate two JHiudred and seventy-eight persons at a sitting, and a 
long table was erected outside of the l)uilding for the basket com- 
mittee to su))ply. and thus meet the wants of hundreds who could 
not be accommodated in the liall. Mr. Henry McCoy of Bradford 
Springs Hotel had charge of the tables in the hall, and under his 
supervision every thing was conducted in the most systematic and 
orderly manner. Mr. Joseph K. Lund was Chairman of the liasket 
Committee, which dispenced good things to the multitude in 
a lavish manner. There was an abundance of food, enough to 
feed two thousand, and the committee who had the matter in charge 
reported that we fed over fourteen hundred people ; many others 
were hos|)itably entertained by private citizens, and the hotels in 
the town. The ham, beef, and bread, were the best the market 
afforded, and tlie contributions of the skillful liousewives of Brad- 
ford were to their praise, honor, and credit forever. 

The singing, under the direction of Prof. Edson C. Page, was 
rendered by a choir selected for the occasion, and the following 
selections were sung: — 

1st, An Anthem, "Sing, () Heavens, and be joyful, O Earth :" 

2nd, Centennial Hymn, written by John G. Whittier. 

3d, "Hurrah for Old New England!" 

4th, "Beautiful Flag." 

5th, A Hymn sung by all to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." 

The Bradford Cornet Band aided by their presence and excellent 
music. 

The Committee selected as President of the Day. Chakles F. 
Davis, with Vice Presidents, Horace K. Martin and George S. 
Morgan. 

The celebration commenced at 1 o'clock on the morning of Sep- 
tember 27th 1887 by a few of Bradford's patriotic citizens led by 
the venerable drum corps, accompanied by the ringing of the 
church bell and the booming of cannon in the village of Bradford. 

At sunrise the regular programme of ringing the church bells 
was in order and duly carried into effect. The day was thus ush- 



8 

ered in, and the weather was most propitious, and remained so 
throughout the entire day. Public business was suspended, and 
the people turned out by hundreds, from this and adjoining towns, 
to unite in celebrating Bradford's centennial. 

At nine o'clock a line was formed near the town house, Mahk 
W. Cheney, Chief Marshall, and Ui Hall, Qeo. T. Dinfielo, and 
Willis N. Bailey, aids. Tlie marshal music was furnished by the 
Bradford Cornet Band and Drum Corps of venerable performers 
of "ye ancient time." INIr. Bailey Adams played the fife, Gilman 
Hadley, a veteran of H5 years, riding in a carriage, beat the snare 
drum, and David K. Hawkes the bass drum ; the average age of 
this band of veteran musicians was 80 years. Following them were 
the battle scarred veterans of Robert Campbell Pose, Grand Army 
of the Republic, St. Peters' Lodge, F. & A. INI., JNIassassecum 
Lodge, I. O. O. P\, and a large number of citizeas in carriages 
and on foot, the whole marching and countermarching through 
both villages to the Baptist church where the ])ublic services were 
to be held. The church and vestry were soon tilled to overflowing ; 
even the aisles, and vestibule, and steps, while outside, (the win- 
dows being open,) the outer walls of the l)uilding were thronged 
with an anxious crowd, eager to catch the droppings from within. 
Notwithstanding all this a great number were unable to hear the 
literary exercises, but were busy talking over the past and review- 
ing old memories of childhood and later years. As soon as the 
multitude had filled the church, at 11 o'clock, the Chief Marshal 
announced Charles F. Davis as President of the Day, who, after 
making a short address of welcome to all, called upon the Rev. 
J. H. Gannett to invoke the divine blessing. After scripture read- 
ing by Bev. Nathaniel Richardson, and singing by the choir, prayer 
was offered by Rev. Stephen G. Abbott of Swanzey, N. H., which 
was followed by reading of the town charter by the President, (in 
the absence of the Town Clerk, Charles H. Morrill). Then after 
music by the Band came historical reading by Mrs. Andrew J. 
Hastings, which was both highly interesting and instructive. 

Hon. Bainbridue Wadleigh of Boston, Mass., one of Bradford's 
honored sons, and former U. S. senator, delivered an able address, 
which met the hearty approval, and commanded the close attention 
of the entire assembl}'. After singing by the choir ''The Centen- 
nial Hymn," (by Whittier,) Hon. John Quincy Adams Brackett 
of Arlington, Mass., another of Bradford's honored sons, a grad- 
uate of Harvard College, and Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts, 



•9 

di'livered an admirahle address whic-b was listened to with unabated 
interest. After another [)ieee of music hy the band we Hstened to 
a declamation by the most aged man in town, Mr. Allen Cressy, 
ninety years oM. "on the death of (retjeral George Washington." 
Mr Cressy's decUimaliou was clearly and energetically spoken, 
and commanded the wonder and admiration of all who heard him. 
It is proper lo state here that Mr. Cressy had four children i)orn 
to liim : Kev. Azariah Cressy of Sutton, N. 11.. aged sixty-six 
years; Henry A. and Daniel F. Cressy of Manchester, N. H., aged 
respectively sixty-three and sixty-two years; and Maria, wife of 
William (). Heath P'.sq. of IJradford, N. H., aged lifty-seven years ; 
all of whom were living and attended the celebration, and whose 
aggregate ages was two hundretl fifty-one years and four months. 
'I'hen came the i)oem which was written by Mrs. Frank Cressy 
of Concord, N. H., a daughter of the late Edmund J. Ring of 
Bradford. This was a masterly production and worthy the pen 
of our most gifted poets; we doubt if it is ever excelled or often 
equaled. The exercises in the church were then closed by the 
choir singing "Tlurrah for Old New F^ngland !" At this time — 1 
o'clock P. M. — all marched to the town hall for dinner, and for 
nearly three hours the committee worked industriously in distrib- 
uting provisions to the multitude. Over one thousand pounds of 
Bread, a quarter of a ton of meat, several hundred pies, and twenty 
bushels of cake, supplementetl by one hundred and fifty gallons of 
tea, coffee, and milk, and two hundred and fifty gallons of })ure 
water, all of which disa|)])eared like dew before the sun, before 
the keen appetites of Bradford's gathered hosts, and yet there was 
f(jod for more, for ample provision had been made for all, but it 
was not in the power of mortal man to feed them at one sitting in 
Bradford town hall. At three o'clock P. M. a part of the multitude 
returned to the church to attend the feast of kkason and the flow 
of soul. The president called for J:he responses to the sentiments in 
their regular order ; some of the responses and letters herein given it 
was impossible to hear for lack of time. At half past four o'clock in 
the afternoon the exercises of the centennial celebration of Bradford 
came to an end, occupying only seven and a half hours. The ad- 
dresses l)y the orators of the day, and the other speeches, poem, and 
statements, aie subjoined entire. The programme carried out on 
that day, six hundred copies of which were printed and distributed, 
is also reproduced. The author of the hymn is the Rev. W. R. Cor- 
chran of Antrim, N. H., author of the history of Antrim. 



10 



PROGRAMME. 

Ringing of Bells &c. at Sunrise. 

1. Procession with band formed in front of town house at !' A. M, 

2. March to (iillis' hotel, thence countermarch to Bradford liotel, 
thence countermarch to the church in the following order : — 

Chief Marshal and Aids, Band, (irand Array. Tree Masons. Odd 
Fellows, President of the Day and \'ice Presidents, Orators, P(jet. 
Speakers, Tovvn Clerk, Clergymen. Choir, Town Otllcers. Aged 
People, Guests and Citizens generally. 

3. At 11 A. M. Chief Marshal announced the President of tlic Day. 

4. Address of Welcome, by the President. . . . Chaklks F. Davis. 

/). Invocation of Divine Blessing Rev. J. M. Oannktt. 

(J. Scripture Reading, Rkv. Nathaniel Richaudsox. 

Singing, anthem, "Sing, O Heav- ) Ciiom. 

ens, and be joyful, O Earth." \ 

H. Prayer, Rev, Stephfin G. ABB(tTT. 

,, ^ Reading town charter, (in absence of ) p„.„..,cTr nAVT« 

!'. " ^1 m /-,! I /-,i 1 TT AT -n \ 1 L/HAKLLS r. iJAVIS. 

/ the Town Clerk Charles H. Morrill,) ) 

10. Historical Reading, Mus. Andrew J. Hastinc^s. 

1 1 . Music Band. 

12. Oration Hon. Bainbkidge Wadlei(;h, Boston, Mass. 

D>. Singing, Centennial Hymn, (John G. Whittier,) Choir. 

14. Oration, Hon. John Qlincy Adams Brackett, Arlington, Mass. 

15. Music, Band. 

16. Declamation, Allen Cressy, Bradford. 

17. Poem, Mrs. Frank Cres.^y, Concord, N. H. 

1«. Singing, "Hurrah for Old New England !" Choir. 

DINNER. 

Social half hour enlivened by Music by the Band. 
RESPONSES TO SENTIMENTS. 

( Anglo Saxon Character, — "Still ) E. Warren S.mith, 
■ \ Persistent and Unchanging." j Lawrence, Mass. 

2. The Physicians of Bradford. 

3. The Past of Bradford contrasted with the Present^ Dr. Hawks. 



o 



11 

, ( The C'h'riiy of Hradford. — May tlieir ef- ( Rkv. S. G. Abboti,, 
( fdits always Ijiing peace and ifood will. \ vSwanzey, N. II. 

i The Fathers and Moth- | Kdwaku A. S'itulky. 

) tiVH of Bradford. ) Boston, ^lass. 

<!. The Schools of Bradford. Ma.i. Sa.mikl Davis, Warner, N. II. 
7. The Lawyers of Bradford, Hkm!y F. Blswell. Canton, Mass. 
.s. Bradford Fifty Years Ago. Masox B. Pkkshy. Salem, N. H. 

( The Men »t Women who laid the Foun- | ,,. * /-, t- 

\ 1 ,. ,. ,, r.i I • i> M- 1 } >* >•• A. C AUK. Esu. 

( dation tor the Uhnrch in Bradford, ) ' 

10. State of Mass.. Of onr best she has taken, and to-day 

onr heaits are made ghul l»y their i)resence. J. W. M«»use Esq. 

1 1 . Singing Choik. 

12. Historic vStatement, Mhs. Maky Ar<irsTA Lill. Milford. I^. II. 

Orand-danghter of Gen. Steiihen Hoyt. 

lo. Hynni. Anld Lang Syne, CnoiK. 

14. Closing Words by the President, Chaulks F. Davis. 

IT). Benediction. 



;t. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

l>y the President of the Day, Charles F. Davis Esc). 

Fellow Citizens of Bradford. Invited Guests. Ladies and 
Gentlemen : — 

We are gathered here to-day to celebrate the pi'aiseworthy efforts 
of our ancestors one hundred years ago. 

Your committee have sent a letter of invitation to each and every 
person, who, to their knowledge, by birth, descent, or former res- 
idence, has the right to unite with us in the pleasures of this cel- 
ebration. To those who have returned to participate in the festiv- 
ities of this occasion we extend a most cordial welcome. This is 
the day that our most honored citizen, the late Col. Mason W. Tap- 
pan, long looked forward to, and hoped to enjoy with us. During 
the last years of his active and useful life he often alUuled to the 
fact of our a})proaching centennial as a town, and expressed an 
earnest wish that the event might be celebrated in an approi)riate 
manner, and urged a number of the townsmen not to let the oppor- 
tunity pass without bringing the subject before the people. Had 
his life been spared he would have l)een one of the first to have 
welcomed you to-da}-, and would, no doul>t, have given utterance 



VI 

to patriotic sentiments, which would have Tsoen like appfe-s of iioh? 
in pictures of silver, — a comfort to us all. 

Glancing for a moment at the history of this grand old town, 
we find tiiat it was incori^orated September 27th. 1787, and in- 
cluded a part of Washington and Fisherstield. Its geographical 
situation is g<M)d, forming the center of a group of seven towns. The 
soil is fertile ; we have plenty of good water and pure air, and we 
are blessed with l»eautiful valleys and hills, lakes and streamsy 
good highways, and delightful scLMiery, with a population of a- 
l)Out one thousand souls. This miniature republic with two hun- 
dred and thirty-four others fonn the '-Old (irauite State,' iwuX 
through its early settlers has a history imperishable. Her sons :ind 
daughters have established a name and a fame, both in war and 
peace, in agnculture, commerce, manufactures, science, and in the 
counsels of men at home and abroad, that reflects credit upon them- 
selves, this town, and the tnie worth of their ancestry. 

To our ancestors we are indebted lor many of the blessings 
we now enjoy ; their sufferings and ])rivations nkvkr can be fully 
known : they are mostly the incidents of an unwritten history. In 
the French and Indian wars, and in tiie war of the Revolution — I 
quote wh;it has been said — '"For nearly two centuries from the 
first settlement of New Hampshire, her entire record is blotted with 
tears and blood ; no pages of human history are more touching 
and pathetic than the French wars, the Indian wars, and the Fn- 
glish wars, which almost crushed the life out of the people of the 
Granite State." 

There fell upon our fathers a storm of woes such as can scarcely 
be paralleled in history. Indians hiy in wait for their blood ; pro- 
prietors sought to rob them of the farms they had cleared ; mon- 
archs usurped their government ; pestilence thinned their ranks ; 
famine wasted their strength. In the four French wars the people 
of New Hampshire reached the very acme of himian suffering, — in 
every instance without notice, and in defiance of treaties. The 
savages of Canada were sent down the 'valley of the Connecticutt 
to murder the defenceles colonists. They were sold as slaves on 
the frontier of Canada. About one third of the entire population 
of New Hampshire fell by Indian barbarities during the old F'rench 
and Indian wars. 

The Revolutionary War would have been a failure without the 
troops of New Hampshire. A majority of the men who fought at 
Bunker Hill were from the Granite State. In the war of 1812 New 



1.*} 

Hnraps^hiio furiiislied her full proprtion of men and money to seemo 
the freedom of the sean and the rights of sailors ; and finally in the 
ureat civil conflict between the North and Sontli, this town fiu- 
nished her full (juota of men to Iceep inseparal)le our galaxy of 
states. 

This ladies and gentlemen, is a i)ai-t of the record of Bradford. 
Some of its citizens were in all of the wars mentioned, and their 
services thus rendered have secured to us most of the blessings we 
now enjoy. Onr ancestors were tried, as it were in crucibles. I)y 
liie. Their example is before us : their acts were noble and for 
a purpose : may we emulate their example, commemorate their 
efforts and sacrifices, by this celebration, and may we transmit 
unimpaired the blessings we now enjoy to all future generations. 

And now for the committee, and in the name of the town of 
Bradford, we again welcome yon all as our Quests and friends. 



TOWN CHARTER 

OF BRADFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



STATE OF NEW FIAMPSHIRE. 

In the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eight}^- seven. 

An act to incorporate New Bradford, in the County of Hillsbo- 
rough, and Washington Gore, so called, and part of Washington, 
in the County of Cheshire, and annex the same to the County 
of Hillsborough. 

Whereas the inhabitants of New Bradford in the Count}^ of 
Hillsborough, and Washington Gore, so called, and part of Wash- 
ington in the County of Cheshire, have petitioned the General Court 
that they might be incorporated and invested with Town privileges, 
and belong to the County of Hillsborough, of which petition and 
the order of Court thereon, due notice hath been given, and no 
objection being made, and the prayer of said petition appearing 
reasonable : — 

Be it therefore enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, in General Court convened, that there be and hereb^^ is a 
Township erected and incorporated by the name of Bradford, Viound- 
ed as follows, viz. — Beginning at a beech tree on Ilillsltorough 
line, thence running North eighty-two degrees East on said line six 



14 

miles uod eiojhty-four rods to a hemlock tree, thence running; the 
same point to tlie North-west corner of Warner, thence North 
seventeen dejjrees West l)y said Warner four miles and two inin- 
dred and thirty-one rods to the South Hne of Sutton, thence West- 
wardly by the said line of Sutton to tlie East line of Fishersfield, 
sixty rods from the South-west corner of said Sutton to a white 
oak tree, marked, being the North-west corner of said Washington 
(iore, thence North seventy-eight degrees West, three miles and 
three hundred and ten rods to a small beech tree marked, standing 
on the line of Fishersfield, thence South two degrees West, two 
miles and one hunded and fifty rods to a black ash tree marked, 
thence South twenty seven degrees East, two miles and one hun- 
dred rods to the bounds first mentioned. And the inhal)itants 
thereof are hereby erected into a body jjolitic and corporate, to 
have continuance and succession forever, and are hereby invested 
with all the powers, and enfranchised with all the rights, privileges, 
and immunities which any town in this State holds or enjoys ; To 
hold the said inhabitants and their successors forever. — And Dea- 
con William Presbury is hereby t^uthorixed to call a meeting of 
said inhabitants to choose all necessary and customary Town OHi- 
cers, giving fourteen days' notice of the time, place, and design 
of such meeting; and such officers shall here b}' be invested with 
all the powers of the officers in any other town in this state, and 
every other meeting shall be annually holden in said Town for that 
purpose on the second Tuesday of INI arch annually forever. 

And be it further enacted, that the said Township so erected 
shall forever hereafter be to all intents and purposes esteemed as 
part and parcel of the said County of Hillsborough ; provided this 
act shall not extend to the effecting any taxes already assessed 
until a new proportion act is made ; but the same taxes already 
assessed shall be collected until said proportion act shall be made, 
except the Town taxes, which may be made after the passing this 
act in like manner as the same would have been, had this act 
not been passed, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

State of I In the House of Kepresentatives, 

New Hampshire, j Sept. 27, llHl. 

The foregoing bill, having been read a third time, voted that it 
pass to be enacted. 

Sent up for (concurrence. 

Thos. Rartlett, Speaker P. T. 



1;') 



HISTORICAL READING, 

Hv Mrs. A. J. Hastings. 

1 have collected a few interestinij facts concerning the first 
fan)ily who settled in our town. 

These were all told to me by my father, and corroborated by 
man}- other aged men and women who have now passed away. 

Deacon William Presbury was a stalwart young man with a wife 
and one little boy, whose name was (Jeorge, when Col. IJradford 
gave him all the land that he could encircle in a day's walk, on 
condition that he would build a house upon it and live in it. 

This was in the autumn ot 1770. He cleared a space and built 
a rude log cabin on the level tra(;t of land which is now the farm 
of Stephen ]Morse. He moved into it on a cold day of the follow- 
ing winter. I have heard my father sa}' that his father — the little 
boy whose name was (Jeorge — was brought into town on the back 
of a man who traveled on snow-shoes. Another man carried a 
few simple articles of household use. William Presbury and his 
nrave young wife bore similar burdens. Mrs. Presb'iry was a 
Miss Dorcas Whittemore of Pembroke, New Hampshire. She had 
left a home of comfort and comi)arative wealth to make, with the 
husband of her choice, a new home in the wilderness — for Brad- 
ford was then a great forest, tilled with wild beasts, with only 
the acre of cleared land and the one little log cabin. 

Deacon William Presbury was a (4od fearing man, and we are 
safe in saying that as he gathered his little family around him by 
the great open fire which roared up the rude stone chimney, that 
he knelt and asked for the blessing of Him who settest the sol- 
itary in families, and that the Founder of so manv homks might 
care for and i)rotect this new one. 

INIistress Dorcas was well fitted through strength of mind and 
physical courage to be the wife of a pioneer, who, being absent 
on hunting expeditions, was often obliged to leave his wife and 
little boy alone, sometimes for weeks. She worked with a will 
and energy truly wonderful ; for two years she was the only wo- 
man in town, and what would to jiost women have been a skvkuk 
deprivation, the only mirror in which she could see her comely 
face was the brook which rippled past her cabin door. 



1(5 

One night INIistress Presbury beard a disturbance with her hogs, 
and upon looking out could dimly see a black creature tr} ing to 
break into their rude pen. She at once determined to save her 
hogs ; so catching up a sharp axe she stealthily crept up behind 
the creature, [which proved to l)e a great black bear,] instantly 
letting the axe tly into his bearship's head, following up the vig- 
orous blow with many others, she finished the bear and saved her 
pork. — Yet she was no Amazon, !)ut a small and delicate looking 
woman, yet strong in her love for her family, — and you can see 
that she was worthy to be the first woman in our town. 

At the close of two years a little girl was born to this adventur- 
ous young couple. To this little jNIiss they gave the name of 
Phebe. She lived for man}- years ; was the wife of (len Stephen 
Hoyte, a man of note in his day. She was the mother of seven 
sons and one daughter. Mr. Elisha Hoyte of Penacook, N. IL, 
a gentleman of seventy-five years, and Mrs. Olive Hoyt Hale of 
Ripley, a lady of eighty, are the only living children of Gen. 
Stephen Hoyte The names of the children of William and Dorcas 
Presbury were (ieorge, Phebe, Rachel, Nathan, Olive, Hannah, 
and one other daughter, whose name we have forgotten. 

Oeorge, the eldest son. married a Miss Lydia Ward, and to them 
were given a family of six daughters and five sons, of which my 
father was the second son. 

The little log cabin growing too small for thi!> large brood, or 
rather, the famih' outgrowing the cabin, a low, comfortable frame 
house was built on the same place where stands and is now part 
of the handsome farm house of Mr. Stephen Morse. 

Rachel Presbury married a Carter of Concord, N. H., where 
some of her descendents are now worthy citizens. Nathan, the sec- 
ond son married and lived on a portion of his father's land which 
was given to him for a farm. As you follow the road up over the 
hill from the "Mill Milage" to the "Center," on the left in the 
Tappan pasture there stood since my remembrance an old red 
house and a barn, the remains of an ancient orchard and the 
ruins of an old cellar are all that is left of the home that once was, 

but IS NOT. 

The third daughter of Dea. Presbury was Olive, who, when 
she was a young lady, taught school in her father's barn; you may- 
wonder where her pupils came from, but in the twenty y^ears since 
the first family came, others had followed, the Browns, Cresseys, 
Beaments, and others. The school was kept in Dea. Presbury'a 



17 

l)arn, intid t'lie bam of Mr. Paniel Cressy was used on Suudays 
for a chureli. 

Olive Presl)urv married Dr. ]Moses Hoyt, an excellent old time 
j)liysician of 'I'onltritlge, Vt. 

Hannah Preshnr}' be<;aiiie the wife of John Raymond Esq., th'C 
founder of he "Raymond House." 

Esquire Rayuioud was a prominent man, and a large real estate 
owner. They lived in a pretiy old-fashioned house where now 
stands the residence of J. P. Marshall. When Mr. Marsiiall built 
his new house, he moved the old one up on the * 'Sutton road," 
fitted it up and sold it to Mr. J. S. Kitteridge. 

INIrs. Hannah Raymond, like her mother, Mrs. Dorcas Presbur^% 
was a delicate, refined woman, and renowned throughout our town 
as being a model housekee[)er. Her cleanliness was pix>verbial ^ 
■even now one sometinies hears the remark made of a very particular 
wouuui, "she is as neat as old Mrs. Raymond." To the last this 
1)1(1 lady retained her wonderful neatness and love of order. My 
mother was in her family a great deal, and as a little girl of four 
and five I often accompanied her. Those visits were not seasons of 
unalloyed pleasure, on account of my at once being seated on a low 
chair in a corner and sternly admonished by my good mother to 
keep my tOi^gue and hands still under punishment of inst mt ban* 
ishment : so holding fast upon my tongue, [and an unfortunate 
uialtese kitten] 1 made good use of my eyes and ears. Most vividly 
<lo I remember the nice old-fashioned rooms, with their quaint 
furnishings : — The table with its spotless linen, beautiful old china, 
and savory food was ever an object of mv' childish adoration, I 
particularly remember the cheerful open fire, the bright andirons, 
shovel and tongs. I was also greatly interested in the high posted 
bedstead with its curtains of bright colored chintz, which I used 
sometimes to cautiously open and take a peep at the invalid old lady, 
so fair to look ui)on in her dainty lace cap and white dimity gown. 

]Mr. and Mrs. Raymond left no children. Their property passed 
into the hands of a nephew, John Raymond Jr., a law'yer of Troy, 
New York, who, disregarding the request of his uncle, sold the prop- 
erty. Strangers now hold it, and even the name of Raymond will 
soon be forgotten. 

The remains of the first orchard ever planted in town is the one 
on the hill-side back of Mr. Morse's house. My great grandfather 
set the trees, assisted by my grandfather, with whom he lived until 
his death in 1814, at the age of eighty years. 



18 

The path of those old pioneers was not strewn with roses. In 
these days of comfort and ease we cannot conceive of the many 
hardships they were called upon to endure : for example, — Dea. 
Presbury was obliged to carry on his back the family grist to the 
nearest mill at Henniker, a distance of nine miles, and his only 
guide was spotted trees. For two years their nearest neighbor 
was Mr. Israel Morrill, who lived over in Warner on the place 
lately owned by Mr. J. S. Kitteridge. Once when Mrs. Presbury 
was very ill her husband summoned the good Mrs. Morrill by a 
gun fired from the top of Goodwin Hill, a signal that had been 
previously agreed upon. 

On the old "Burying Hill," near Mr. Morse's, sleep Dea. WilHam 
Presbury and Dorcas, his wife. The tombstone will tell you 
that she was the first and for two years the only female in town, 
that she lived to the advanced age of ninety-six years. Near them 
rests their beloved son, George, and Lydia, his wife. All around 
them are their children, grandchildren, neighbors and friends, l^e- 
side them forever whisper the pines ; at their feet nestles the home 
they loved ; across the meadow on which they toiled the stately elms 
nod their heads, and the peaceful river winds its way. 



ADDRESS. 

By Hon. Bainbridge Wadleigh. 



FELLOW CITIZENS : 

'I'o-da}' the town of Bradford begins the 
second centiirv of her history. We are here to celel)rate the day of 
her birth. We are here to keep green tlie memory of her found- 
ers, as we would wish our own preserved by those who may fill 
our places a hundred years hence. Those of us who first saw the 
light among these hills, but whose lives have been mainly spent 
elsewhere, come here now as to the lap of a mother. 

The past unrolls like a scroll to our memories. Here we meet 
again (perhaps for the last time) a few companions of our youth 
whom the scythe of Time has spared, and our hearts bow in sad- 
ness as we think of the many who have passed bej'ond mortal eyes 
forever. Here are the i)<)nds and brooks where we fished, swam, 
and skated — the hills down which we coasted — the rocky fields 
from which our youthful hands helped to wring reluctant harvests — 
the woods where we hunted game and gathered beechnuts in the 
bright sunshine of the short autumn da3's — the maple orchards 
where we ate the fresh, ungrained sugar from chunks of glittering 
ice in early spring — the gnarled tree among the rocks, whose sap 
of famed sweetness, drank from the cold tin pail into which it had 
dripped, seemed more delicious than the nectar of the Olympian 
gods — the plain temples of worship whose humble spires pointed 
us to heaven, and the eternal mountains whose shaggy forests we 
explored for wild honey and si)ruce gum, and whose hollow roaring 
in the cloudless nights of winter seemed like the moaning of the 
restless and wide-resounding sea. 

We miss the rude and uncomfortable school-houses where by the 
aid of the ferule we slowly and painfully climbed the first slopes of 
the hill of science, and where when fortune smiled, we sat at 
spelling-schools beside the bright-eyed girls we loved best. They 
have been superseded by structures more convenient and more in 
accord with the spirit of the age, but which to us, whose heads are 
silvered by Time, lack the sweet and subtle charm of association. 

A hundred years in the life of a municipality may seem but a 



2ff 

sliort step in a long jf)urney. Vet thrPe sach steps carry xxh hnrk 
to a time when, save a few Spaniards in Florida, no white man's 
foot pressed our counti-y's soil ~ four, to a time when this whole 
continent seemed hidden in everlasting darkness, — seven, heyoncl 
the birth o-f the oldest^ existing politi('aI institution in P>urope — 
nineteen beyond the birth of Christ — and sixty, to a ])eriod when, 
nntil recently, the material universe was su[)p<>se<l to have been' 
created. When we reflect what a short space in the past is illu- 
mined by even the faintest raiys from the lamp of history, a century 
seems no inconsideralde time. 

Yet compared with some other New K,iiglaiid towns, this of ours, 
seems youthful. Portsmouth and Dover in this state, and the city 
of Boston, were first settled in 1()2;>. Several other towns not far 
distant have celebrated the ^oOth anniversary of their birth, and 
nearly two hundred and sixty-sevea years have passed since the 
Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. 

For more than a century after Portsmouth. Dover, and Exeter 
were founded, the settlement of New Mami)shire went on at a snail's- 
pace, and nearly her whole white population was in those three 
towns and two or three others on her southern border. There 
were two causes for this long lethargy-. The first was the long 
controversy over the title to the soil of Ne^v Hampshire, and the 
second, the perils of Indian warfare. 

At the risk of being thought tedious, I will tell you biiefly, who 
claimed the soil of this province, what were the gi'ounds of the 
respective claims, and how the dispute ended. 

The first claim referred to was that of John Mason, and those 
who claimed under him. The second was that of the Massachu- 
setts Bay Company. These claims were based on royal grants. 
The third and most equitable claim, was that of the hardy pioneers 
who hewed out of the dense forests, homes for themselves and their 
descendants. Their claim was based on adverse possession under 
a claim of right, which after a certain length of time, by the com- 
mon law of England gives a good title. This just claim of the 
settlers was supported by the pretended Indian deed to Rev. John 
AVheelwright, which was an ingenious forgery. 

North America, from Florida to Greenland, and from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific, was claimed by the British Crown on the 
ground that British subjects had discovered and taken possession 
of it. In 1606 King James I., a cowardly and tyranical pedant, 
who won and deserved the reputation of being "the wisest fool 



21 

in F^nropo," issiued a patent, locating tlui Province of Virginia be- 
tween the ;>4th and 44tli degri e.s of north hititnde, including more 
than half the State of North Carolina, extending northward to the 
present town of Haverhill in this State, and stretching from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. 

In the same year King James made two grants — one of North 
Virginia to certain Englishmen in Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth, 
(England) and the other of South Virginia to others in the city 
of London. By some unaccountable blunder, these two grants 
overlapped each other three degrees, so that all the land between 
the mouth of the Potomac Hiver and the southern shore of the 
State of Connecticut was included in both. On that account the 
grantees of North Virginia applied for the confirmation and enlarge- 
ment of llieir grant. King James therefore in 1B2() granted all 
North America Ijing between the 4()ih and 4<Sth parallels of lat- 
itude, and extending from the State of Delaware to the northern 
border of New Brunswick, or a point about SO miles no th of 
Quebec, to 40 English noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, whom 
he incorporated as "The council established at Plymouth in the 
County of Devon for the ruling, and governing of New England 
in America." This grant was the foundation of both Mason's title 
and that of the Massachusetts Bay Company. 

John jNIason was an opulent merchant of London, who had 
been the royal governor of Newfoundland, and who was one of 
the members of the Council of Plymouth, and its secretary. He 
was enterprising, pertinacious and enthusiastically interested in the 
colonization of America. The Council of Plymouth gave him in 
all four grants. The first was made in 1621. It commenced at 
the mouth of the_ river of Naumkeag, (now Salem) thence it ran 
to the mouth of Merrimack River, (including all the islands within 
three miles of the sea-shore) thence up the Merrimack River to 
the head thereof: thence in a straight line to the head of the river 
of Naumkeag. This grant embodied two egregious Idunders. One 
related to the length of the river of Naumkeag, the other to the 
course of the Merrimack. At that time the English navigators 
had only sailed along the coast and knew nothing of the interior of 
the country. They supposed that the narrow arm of the sea at 
Salem, into which empties only a petty rivulet, was a large river 
extending far inland and flowing from west to east. The western 
boundary of this grant was an impossible one, for it would leave 
nearly the whole course of the Merrimack on the outside of it. In 



22 

other words, the eastern was located west of the western boundary. 

In 1G22 the Council of Plymouth granted to Mason and Ferdi- 
nando Gorges jointly, all the land between the Merrimack and Sag- 
adahoc (now Kennebec) Kivers, extending hack to the great lakes 
and river of Canada. About 1(>29 Mason and Gorges are supposed 
to have divided the land included in their grant of 1622, Gorges 
taking all west of Piscataqua River, that is the Province of Maine, 
which his heirs in 1(J77 sold to ^Massachusetts. It is believed also 
that Mason for some unknown I'cason surrendered to the Council 
of Ph'mouth the title accpiired by him under the grant of 1()22 to 
any lands west of Piscataqua River. It is certain that he did not 
rely u[)on that grant in any of the subsequent controversies, nor 
introduce it as evidence to i)rove his title in the trial of his suits 
at law. On the 7th of November l(j29 he received another grant 
from the "Council, commencing in the middle of Piscataqua River 
and up the same to the farthest head thereof, and from thence 
northwestward until sixty miles from the mouth of the harbor were 
finished ; also through Merrimack River to ihe farthest head thereof, 
and so forward up into land westward until sixty miles were fin- 
ished, and from thence to cross over land to the end of the sixty 
miles accounted from Piscataqua River together with all the 
islands within five leagues of the coast." 

In 1635 the council made another grant to Mason confirming the 
grants of 1621 and 1621», thus giving him the land between the 
Naumkeag and Piscataqua Rivers. Mason's claim to New Hamp- 
shire finally rested, however, on the grant of 1629. 

We come now to the claim of Massachusetts. On the third of 
March 1628 the Council of Plymouth made a grant to the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Company which was confirmed by King Charles II. 
by a patent dated March 4th, 1629. That grant bounded the 
lauds of Massachusetts on the north by "a line three miles to the 
northward of Merrimack River or to the northward of any and 
every part thereof" from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All these 
grants erroneously assume that Merrimack River flows from west 
to east, and some that the distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
is a mere trifle. 

John Mason died soon after the grant of 1635, and his claim to 
New Hampshire passed by will to his giandson Robert Tufton, who 
took the surname of Mason, and who did not become of age 
till 1650. 

The claim of Massachusetts was so earnestly pressed and the 



23 

advantages of a union of the two provinces were so ol)vioiis, that 
in April 1(341, when tlie attention of the Knglish government was 
distracted b}- the opening scenes of the great revolution which sent 
the King to the scaffold, the New Hampshire towns yielded to the 
jurisdiction of Massachusetts. That union lasted till 1(!80. While 
it existed it was useless to jjress the Mason claim, and the heirs 
lost all hope of success unless it came through the interposition 
of the English government. 

In 1G.>.'5 the General Court of Massachusetts established the 
northern boundary of that Province three miles north of the outlet 
of Winnipiseogee Lake. Uj)on the restoration of the Stuarts to 
the Biitish throne, Robert Mason in 1 ()(;(». jjetitioned King Charles 
II. for redress. The King referred the petition to his attorney 
general, who re|)orted that Mason had a good title to the Province 
of New Hampshire. From that time all the influence of the crown 
was exerted to promote the claims of IMason against Massachusetts 
and the settlers. A royal commission was sent to New England in 
1662, which warmly supported the Mason claim. There being no 
hope for the Mason claim in the courts so long as New Hampshire 
and ^lassachusetts were united, they were separated in KliSU, and a 
government for New Hampshire established by a royal decree — ev- 
ery member of which was interested in the claim. Suits at law were 
brought against the settlers and executions obtained against them 
in 1685, but the people resisted the officers, who could not enforce 
them. Warrants for the rioters having been procured, the officers 
attempted at Dover to arrest them while they were attending divine 
service. The congregation rose — one strapping damsel with her 
large bible knocked down one of the officers, and they were so 
roughly handled that they were glad to escape with their lives. 
Fifteen years later, about 1700, a suit at law against Maj. Waldron 
was brought by Samuel Allen, who claimed Mason's title under a 
deed from his heirs, but the records of the former judgments hav- 
ing been destroyed, Allen was beaten. He appealed to C^ueen 
Anne, but the royal council affirmed the judgment against Allen — 
giving him leave, however, to begin a new suit. Allen having died 
in 1705, his son Thomas Allen brought a new suit against Waldron, 
which was tried in 170G. In that trial Waldron relied upon his 
adverse possession under a claim of title, and the only evidence of 
any claim of title by him was the forged deed to Rev. John Wheel- 
wright, from four Indian sachems. The jury found for Maj. Wal- 
dron as before, and an appeal was taken by Allen, but a decision 



24 

being withheld, and Allen dying in 1715, his heirs did not prose- 
cute the appeal. 

After Thomas Allen's death the Gent^ral Court of iMassaehusetts 
granted numerous townships in southern New Hampshire and along 
the fertile meadows of Connecticut Kiver. Among them was one 
line of townships to defend the western border against the Indians, 
which covered the eastern shore of the Connecticut from the present 
north line of Massachusetts to Claremont. 

In 1735 and 1 7o6 the Genei'al Court of Massachusetts granted for 
the same object a doulile line of towns extending from Pennacook 
(now" Concord) on the Merrimack, to C'harlestown (which was ISo. 4 
in the western line of tofvns) on the Connecticut. Tlie townships 
thus granted were No. 1 including Warner ; No. "2 including Brad- 
ford ; No. 3 including the northerly part of Washington and part 
of Lempster ; No. 4 including the remaining land between No. 3 
and Charlestown ; No. 5 including Hopkinton ; No. (i including Hen- 
niker ; No. 7 including Hillsborough, and No. 8 including part of 
Washington and part of Stoddard. Efforts were made in vain to 
settle these grants and so far as can be learned from the records, 
Bradford was not settled until 1771, al)out 36 years afterwards. 

In 1737 commissioners to establish the line between Massachu- 
setts and New Hampshire were appointed by royal authority. Their 
report was evasive and both provinces appealed from it to King 
George II. In 1740 he made his decision and gave to New Hamp- 
shire more land than she had claimed, fixing the line of division 
substantially as it now exists. That was the end of the long 
controversy between the two provinces growing out of the contra- 
dictory royal grants. By this decision the grant of township No. 2 
which included the territory of this town was annulled. 

On account of a flaw in Allen's title, the title of Robert Mason 
passed to his grandson John Tufton Mason, who on the 30th of 
January 174C, conveyed his whole interest in 15 shares to 12 per- 
sons who were afterwards known as "the Masonian proprietors," 
for 1500 pounds currency. All these purchasers except one 
were citizens of New Hampshire and men of great influence both 
in the colony and England. To allay popular indignation they 
quitclaimed their land in all the towns that had been granted by 
New Hampshire and settled — of which there were seventeen. 
The}'^ quieted the settlers on the Massachusetts grants by the most 
generous and satisfactory compromises. As soon as they received 
their first deed from Mason, they commenced granting townships 



25 

to petitioners. The grantees were, wilhic a limited time, to erect 
mills and ineeting-bouses. clear out roads, and settle ministers. 
In evrey township was reserved one right for the first settled 
minister, another for a parsonage, and a third for a school. The 
proprietors also reserved lo rights for themselves and two for their 
attorne3s in each town — all which were to be free from taxes until 
sold or o<.-cupied. These rights varied in size in different towns. 
By such a policy the interests of the people soon became united 
with those of the proprietors, and in 1787 the General Court passed 
an act which settled the controversy satisfactorily and forever. 

As I have said, the Indian wars were another cause for the 
long delay in settling our state. Thej' began in 1G75 and ended in 
17GU. During that .So years the frontier of civilization in New 
Haini)shire scarcely passed lieyond a line drawn east and west 
through the northern liorder of th" old township of Dunstable, and 
south of Monadnoc Mountain. During that whole time terror 
brooded unceasingly over the lonely homes of the pioneers. War- 
parties of cunning, cruel savages swooped upon them from the dark 
forests like beasts of prey. 'I'orture, death and captivity constantly 
stared them in the face, and none could tell when the storm would 
burst. The frontiersman kept his trust}^ musket always loaded and 
at his side. He bore it even to church, and the old custom which 
gives the head of the pew to the grown males of the household, 
is a relic of those many anxious years when the Indian war-whoop 
might at any moment summon the worshipers to battle. Such was 
the hard school in which were trained the men who, so long as their 
amunition lasted, repulsed the best troops of England at Bunker 
Hill. In 1760 the victory of Wolfe and the capture of Quebec gave 
Canada to Great Britain — the long struggle between P^ngland and 
France for dominion over the New World was ended — the lilies of 
France gave place to the cross of St. George, and the Indian tribes, 
deprived of French support, sullenly but forever yielded to the 
ascendency of the pale-faces who spoke the tongue of England. 

With the return of peace civilization rose from its long lethargy 
and resumed its onward march. In 176.T the Masonian propri- 
etors made a grant to John Peirce and George Jaffrey which cov- 
ered the central and larger part of this town. George Jaffrey was 
a resident of Portsmouth — one of the original Masonian proprie- 
tors, and a ver}^ influential man. He was a brother-in-law of the 
royal Governor Benning Wentworth, president of the council, 
treasurer, chief-justice and justice of the admiralty. • In his honor 



26 

the town of Jaffrey was named. John Peirce was a relative of 
Joshua Peirce, who was another of the original Masonian proprie- 
tors. Both John Peirce and Jaffrey were active in promoting the 
settlement of the province, and Peirce's descendants were until 
recently, and are probably now, owners of extensive tracts of wild 
land upon the Sunapee Mountains. 

The date of the first actual settlement of Bradford is not entirely 
beyond doubt. There is a tradition that l^aac Davis settled near 
Bradford Pond at some time before 17()7, and his descendants, 
who are some of our most respectalde and intelligent citizens, be- 
lieve a son w^as l)orn to him here some years l)efore the arrival of 
any other settler. As Henniker had 388 inhal)itants in l77o. it is 
not improbable that Davis settled so near her border before 1771. 
It is true that History makes no mention of Davis' settlement, but 
experience teaches us that history, if not a notorious liar, (as a dis- 
tinguished satirist has said,) is extremely liable to make mistakes 
and cannot alwa^'S be relied on, even in respect to recent events. 

There is no doubt, however, that in 1771 Dea. William Presbury 
came from Henniker and settled in this town. He purchased land 
from Jaffrey and Peirce, cleared it, died here, and his descendants 
live here to this day. 

In 1774 several families from Bradford, Mass. settled here and 
gave the name of New-Bradford to their new home. From 1771 
to 1775 this part of the state was being rapidly settled up. But 
the Revolutionary War broke out April 19th, 1775, and the active, 
vigorous men of the colonies were fighting for national independ- 
ence until Oct. 19th, 1781, when the contest was virtuall}'^ ended 
by the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. That desperate 
struggle of six and one-half years absorbed the energies of the 
colonists, but when it was over, they once more turned to the con- 
quest of the wilderness. 

When this town was incorporated by an act of the General Court 
in 1787, it included not only New-Bradford, but also a strip of 
land not included in any survey and known as "Washington Gore" 
and a part of Washington which the citizens of that town voted 
to surrender. In 1788 Ebenezer Eaton and Enoch Hoyt, selectmen, 
petitioned the General Court for leave to tax all land in Bradford 
a penny per acre, "the inhabitants being few in number and the 
roads extremely bad." In 1789 upon the petition of the selectmen 
and others, Ebenezer Eaton was appointed to the honorable office 
of justice of the peace. In 1796 by an act of the General Court, 



57 

the to'wii line was straightened so as to include a part of Fishers- 
field — now Newbiif}'. In 1796 tbe first meetinor-house in this town 
was built. As towns were then religious parishes, the building was 
built by and belonged to the town, and was used not only for di- 
vine worshij), but for town meetings and other gatherings of the 
peoi)le. It was one of those old-fashioned wooden structures, now 
rarely found unchanged, with a high box-pulpit and a huge pine 
"sounding-board" over it on one side — a double door on the other 
side — a porch and door at each end — large square pews with high 
railings and hinged seats all around the inside of them, except where 
a lofty door opened into the aisle — wide galleries with pews and 
the usual seats for the deacons. The minister's salary was paid 
by a town tax, and of course this community, like nearly all others 
in New England, was cursed by quarrels which sprung from the 
efforts of Baptists and other dissenters to escape taxes for the sup- 
port of a creed which they disbelieved. At least one clergyman 
of what was known as "the standing order" left in disgust at the 
non-payment of his salary. Finally by an act of the General Court 
the support of religion was made to de|)end on voluntary contribu- 
tions, since which hostility between different religious denomina- 
tions has much abated. 1 well remember that in m}' boyhood most 
of the people at the "Mills" and "Corner" where Baptists predom- 
inated, were inclined to look upon the "standing order" as an 
arrogant aristocracy who closely resembled the Pharisees of the 
New Testament. 

Though written creeds may not change, the vitality of religioua 
belief slowly yields to the inlluence of time and the spirit of the 
age. The earliest sermons that I heard in my boyhood depicted 
at great length, with much minuteness and in lurid colors, the 
never-dying flames, the suffocating stench, and the unimaginable 
horrors of a hell to which every human soul had been condemned, 
or from which it had been absolved before the creation of the 
world — so that for the elect there could be no fear, and for the 
non-elect no hope. The last half century has, in New P^ngland, 
wonderfully diminished the zeal with which such sermons are 
preached from the pulpit or believed in the pews. The love of 
God for his children is now a more attractive subject than His 
anger. 

In 1838, after the establishment of the voluntary system, the 
Congregationalists built a new church at the Centre Village and 
abandoned the old meeting-house to the town. A few years ago 



28 

it was removed to its present location and divided into two- 
stories — so that it contains a school room and a town hall. 

The building of the Calvinistic Baptist meeting-house was begun 
in 1829 and completed in l.SoO. Then a dense forest surrounded 
it. About a quarter of a century ago it had become ruinous and 
was repaired and remodeled under the ministry of Rev. S. G. 
Abbott. It is only just to say that, however much the Congrega- 
tional and Baptist churches of fifty years ago might differ, l)otb 
exercised a good influence, on this coninuinit3-, and they vrere 
^'ministered unto" by pastors of virtuous lives and exem|>lary 
habits, who expounded the doctrine of their respective denomina- 
tions with zeal and tidelity. 

Besides the churches that I have named there was a Free-will 
Baptist meeting-house at the south part of the town in which 
Elder Holmes preached for many years. That was, I tliiuk, 
known as the "bush" meeting-house. On the hill near Bradford 
Pond was another small meeting-house dedicated to the use of 
no particular denomination, but used for, preaching of all kinds. 

There were a few Methodists in town, to whom Elder Steele 
sometimes preached. At one time there were here a considerable 
number of Campbellites, generally cg-lled Christians. I am not 
aware that they ever had any pastor except Elder Morrison and 
Elder John Gillingham. The sermons of the latter though not 
learned, logical, nor instructive, were so full of emotion and eccen- 
tric eloquence that they charmed most of his hearers. They occu- 
pied for several years a chapel over the school room in the Mill 
Village. 

Half of a century ago there was a much stronger military spirit 
in this town than there is now. Whatever national hatred then 
existed here was against England alone. Every able-bodied man 
between the ages of 17 and 41, was (with very few exceptions) 
liable to military duty. They met for drill at least twice a year, 
besides attending the regimental muster in the fall. There were 
two companies of infantry and a company of artillery, I think, in 
this town, and part of a troop of cavalry. The Bradford Rifle Com- 
pany was my boyish beau-ideal of a military force, and I vehe- 
mently suspected every man in it to be a hero^ Every military- 
company chose its own uniform. Our rifle company paraded in 
black fro(;k coats and pantaloons, with black, flexible, leather hats, 
each adorned by several good sized black ostrich feathers. They 
were accompanied by "pioneers," part of whom carried long lances, 



29 

mill tlic rest battle-axes of an ancdent fashion. The "pioneers'' 
marched in the van, uniformed in long tunics — some scarlet, some 
crimson. The other company of infantry were of the "slambang" 
t\'pe without uniforms, tliough the cai)tain, lieutenant, and ensign, 
each wore white pantaloons, a dark coat, and a tall black hat with 
a long feather pompon. The artillery company, whose gun-house 
was located at the Centre Village, wore, I think, the cocked hat 
and other uniform of the Revolutionary army, excepting the knee 
breeches. The "trooi)ers," (as the cavalry were called) wore stiff 
leather hats covered with bearskin — bobtail, scarlet coats with white 
facings, wliite breeches and long cavalry boots. They had a hol- 
ster covered with bearskin on each side of their saddles for the 
enormous brass-l)arrelled horse-pistols of that period. 

The old-fashioned muster Avas, in the olden time, the most 
dissipated day of the whole year. Patriotic hilarity prevailed, and 
the patriotism of the man who refused to "•take something" was 
douljted. Many unsuspecting countr3-men fell into the hands of 
professional gaml)lers and were victims to their perfidious arts. 
Sometimes the gambler and his victim fought — their friends joined 
in the contest — knives were drawn — ihe militia joined in the fight, 
and the blacklegs were overwhelmed and routed. The country boy 
who whipped a. gambler on the muster-field became a rural hero. 
Without giving any military instruction of value, these musters 
were schools of debauchery and crime, and it was a white day when 
they were legislated out of existence, which was about 35 years ago.' 

In mj- boyhood a few soldiers of the Revolution were lingering 
on the stage and were looked on with veneration, wliatever might 
be their foibles. Une I well remember who lived in this town or 
its vicinity, and who was called by the boys "General Blood." I 
did not at that time suspect the genuinenesss of his title. He was 
a frank and jovial soul who delighted to appear on public occa- 
sions wearing a cocked hat or some other memento of his martial 
career. The gratitude of his countrymen was manifested by 
"drink-offerings" too frequently for his own good, though they 
meant nothing but kindness. 

Since the infancy of this town a great change has been wrought 
in its social customs. Then ardent spirits were freely drunk ou' 
all occasions. No meeting-house could be raised — no clergyman: 
could be satisfactorily ordained without them. The full decanter 
greeted the minister at every parochial visit. It assuaged the 
grief of the mourners at every funeral and doubled the hilarity of 



30 

every wedding. No militia captain was popular unless he furnished 
his soldiers with a wash-tub full of rum-punch on ''training-days. 
Laborers generally believed that no man could work hard without 
his grog. Furious was the "hired man" whose employer stinted 
his supply of rum — especially in haying-time, and such disgraceful 
parsimony was sure to call out popular indignation. Kvery country- 
store displayed gorgeously-painted casks of licpior properly labelled, 
behind the counter on which stood the tin tray full of dry salt cod- 
fish, furnished gratuitously to excite a raging thirst. .strong 
liquors were then wonderfully cheap, which much increased in- 
temperance — a fact on which the statesmen who now propose to 
abolish the duty on rum and whiskey and still tax the necessaries 
of life would do well to ponder. Good New England rum could 
then be bought for 20 cents a gallon, which is but little more 
than the price of spring-water in Boston now. The state of things 
which I have described existed to a considerable extent in my boy- 
hood. Between 40 and 50 years ago I was one of a uniformed 
military company composed of 3'oung boys who trained several 
times a year, and were always openly treated with wine or punch 
at some of the stores, without any hostile criticism so far as I 
knew. And the first and onl}' time I ever trained in the militia, 
the Captain took his company to Mr. William Murdough's and 
gave them a tub of punch. 

Between 1840 and 1850, however, the "Washingtonian" tem- 
perance movement struck Bradford and effected a reformation in 
the views and habits of many of the people which has never fully 
lost its force, and for which many wives and children have good 
reasons to bless "the Giver of all mercies" — for a worse evil than 
intemperance does not now exist on earth. 

There has been a great change in the habits of domestic life 
within the present centurj^, and even within my memory. I think, 
(though I am not quite positive,) that I can recollect a time when 
there was not a cooking stove in this town — certainly when there 
were very few. The great open fire-place, with its huge back-log 
and heaps of blazing cord-wood furnished warmth both for com- 
fort and cooking. The heat that went roaring up the chimney 
created furious drafts from every part of the room, that chilled one 
side while the other was roasting. The goose or turkey or haunch 
of fresh beef, hung by a string before the fire-place while one of the 
younger children turned and basted it. The tin "baker" sat on the 
broad stone hearth — the potatoes for breakfast were buried in the 



31 

hot ashes at night. Grafted fruit was unknown — <;ood fruit was 
rare, but the orchards were large and cider so plentiful that sixty 
barrels a year was not an extraordinary provision for a single 
household. 

Instead of relying on the visits of a butcher, nearly every farailv, 
late in the fall, buried in snow its store of fresh meat for the win- 
ter. Most families had an immense hand-loom in which was woven 
into cloth the flax or wool which was raised, carded, spun, and 
dyed at home. Some expert seamstress went from house to house 
to make up the family wardrobes, and the shoe-maker, with his 
work-bench and lap-stone, did the same. The family library was 
generally limited to the P'armer's Almanac and the bible, though 
the latter was sometimes accompanied by Scott's Commentaries — 
one of the dullest works that ever benumbed the human mind. 
The bare walls of the dwelling were adorned by no engravings nor 
works of art, and hardly a family possessed a musical instrument of 
an}' kind. Indeed, the pious, elderh' people of that time looked 
upon the use of any such thing in divine worship as "an abomination 
unto the Lord." The meeting-houses were long unwarmed by ar- 
tificial heat, even in the coldest weather, and the use of tin foot- 
stoves by any males except the aged and sickly, w-as looked upon 
as contemptible effeminacy. 

Our ancestors of a hundred j'ears ago, generally believed that 
the invisible world directly interfered with and influenced the 
trivial affairs of their daily lives. They felt that the sleepless eye 
of Omnipotence was constantly u|)on them and that the powerful 
and malignant tempter and adversary of man, constantly prowled 
around their dwelling and beleagured their souls with snares and 
pitfalls. In their eyes, to doubt the existence of witches and witch- 
craft, w^s a guilty skepticism of the biblical truth. 

To educate the children of the town, was thought by our fore- 
fathers, to be one of their chief duties. The school-houses of that 
day were rude, and the schools short. Boys generally attended 
the winter school till they became of age, and sometimes longer, 
for in an agricultural community, there is comparatively little work 
and much leisure in the cold season. I dare say the schools and 
school-houses of this town changed very little during the first half 
century of its existence, and that the first school I attended was a 
fair type of the earlier ones. 

At that time the "Mills" and "Corner" villages occupied the 
same brick school-house which, changed to a dwelling now, stands 



32 

near the house of the late Dr. Ames. The seats rose from the 
floor nearly to the ceiling on each side of the house. If a scholar 
dropped anything, it was sure to roll or slide to the level plain in 
the middle — at one end of which, near the door, stood an immense, 
open, iron stove, and at the other, the master's desk. The small 
scholars near the stove, were daily loasted in cold weather by the 
fire, which blazed and roared in their faces. J^very scholar who 
studied penmanship carried his own ink-stand of lead or stone 
(which every cold morning was warmed by the fire to thaw the 
frozen ink) and a goose-quill of which the teacher made a pen. 
The ink was generally made at home of vinegar, nut-galls and iron, 
and of course was indelible 

There was then no sentimentality al)out administering corporal 
punishment. Many of the punishments that I have seen were in- 
geniously cruel and l)arbarous. Scholars were made to hold a 
stick of wood at arm's length — to carry as much wood as they 
could lift around the stove — to put their heads down as low as 
their knees and stand in that position — - to hold down a nail in 
the floor with the finger while standing — all until the limit of 
human endurance was reached. My first teacher was John 
Towne, who was afterwards the Register of Deeds of Sullivan 
County for many 3^ears, and who still lives at Newport. The next 
was Mr. Eastman, who was afterwards a successful physician at 
Newport and died there. Then came a Mr. Clifford, who taught 
English grammar so skillfully that its study was a pleasure and 
not a bore. 

There was, 50 years ago, considerable rivalry between the 
"Mills" and "Corner" villages. Perhaps it has not yet wholly 
vanished, though I hope it has, since the railroad wedded the rivals 
to each other. But the rivalry between the grown villagers was 
between the school-boys, a feud as fierce, if not as fatal, as ever 
raged between two hostile clans in the Scotch highlands, or be- 
tween the Iroquois and Hurons in the American forests. The 
scholars from the "Mills" were called "upper-enders," and those 
from the "Corner" and the country beyond it, "lower-enders." 
The feud had outlived generations of school-boys, and every 
morning, noon, and night, gave rise to furious contests in which 
quarter was neither asked nor given. The brawn}' young men 
who sat in the back seats, and who were believed to be able to 
whip the master if they chose to try, were looked up to by the 
small boys with the same mingled envy aud admiration that were 



B3 

^jesto'wed on Ajax and the swift Achilles by the home-sick cominon 
Greeks, who beleagnred the walls of ''wind-swept Tnn'." P^ven 
innocent love-making w-as limited by the feud, and was seldom, 
if ever, carried on between the young "-upper-euders" and "lower- 
■enders." Finally about 50 years ago the district was divided — 
distance accomplished what parental reproof and clerical admo- 
nition could not, and extinguished the long feud of the school-boys. 

The early settlers of Bradford, and indeed of all New Hamp- 
shire, were fond of conflict and loved rough, athletic sports, law- 
suits, and arguments. Raisings, huskings, town-meetings, and 
all kinds of week-day gatherings except funerals, were enlivened 
by wrestling matches, foot-races, pulling fingers, pulling sticks, 
and muscular contests of all forms. 

They enjoyed litigation with the keen zest of Dandie Dinmont, 
who said that iu Liddesdale, it was disgraceful for a man never to 
have l)een before the twelve. xVlmost every cause of action led to 
a law-suit, and as every man could be arrested on any kind of writ, 
the plaintiff didn't have to worry himself about finding property to 
attach. I think Weare Tappan was the first lawyer who ever resid- 
ed here, and he is authentically reported to have said that his fees 
for making justice-writs alone, while he was building and furnish- 
ing his house, paid for it all. 

In New Hampshire rural communities like this, the long winter 
evenings are seldom given up to gross dissipation or mere amuse- 
ment, as is the case among men less intelligent and less serious, or 
who are surrounded by the numerous diversions of cities. Here, in 
every store and sho[), gr()ui)s of men met at night and on stormy 
days and discussed with keenness and sound common-sense the 
great questions of the time. It is impossible to over-rate the advan- 
tages of such fireside discussions in a republic like ours. They are 
the preparatory schools for the town-meetings. 

How well I remember the first Tuesdays of March, when nearly 50 
years ago, the voters braved the cutting wind, the Hying snow, and 
the huge drifts, to attend the annual meeting at the Centre village. 

Some of the bo3's peddled votes and some apples and gingerbread, 
the flat cakes of which were devoured with an appetite that nothing 
but the biting cold and toilsome journey could justify. Such town- 
meetings made New England what she is. They taught every citi- 
zen the difficult art of popular government. In them the plain 
people discussed and decided the questions which concerned them, 
sometimes with a terseness and force that mioht well excite admi- 



S4 

ration in the highest legiKlative body on earth. If I were to se- 
lect for the instruction and admiration of the people of foreign 
lands the most wonderful and precious object-lesson our national 
life can show, I would display to their eyes the records of some 
New England town like this. Marred as they often are by 
faults of spelling and grammar — exhibiting as they sometimes* 
do the avarice and meanness from which political comraunitie& 
can never be entirely exempt, they generally manifest soundness 
of judgment, practical wisdom, and unerring common-sense. 
When I look back upon the leading men of this town 40 to 50 
years ago, and compare them with those whom I have seen since 
in the highest stations, their ability astonishes me. Nor do I 
doubt that 5'ou have the same practical ability here to-day. 

Like all the purely agricultuj-al towns of New England, afar 
from cities, Bradfox'd has diminished in pojmlation for many 
yeais past. New-Bradford contained 128 inhabitants in 1786, 
and in 1790, 217. Since 1790 there has been a census every ten 
years, but I will not give the number of inhabitants here, accord- 
ing to each, as my friend who is to follow me will give you 
the figures. Suffice it for me to say that in 1810 Bradford had 84 
more inhabitants than she had in 1880 — 70 years later. Between 
1820 and 1880 she lost 368. Her greatest population was shown 
in 1850. It was then 1341, but had dwindled to 950 in 1880. 

Empty school-houses, abandoned and ruinous farm-houses, 
once fertile fields, now devoted to grazing or turning into wilder- 
ness again, proclaim how, allured by the love of adventure or 
hope of success, the youth of New Hampshire have flown away 
from their native hills, and how, when parents grow helpless or 
pass from earth, their places remain vacant, and the old home- 
steads become desolate. The time will doubtless come when the 
cheap and fertile lands of the West and South will be exhausted 
or taken up, and the tide of human life will flow back to breathe 
the forceful air that sweeps from our mountains, and to quaff 
the pure water that oozes from the granite of our hills. 

But however much the Granite State may have suffered from 
the emigration of her children, she can console herself with the 
reflection that wherever they may have gone, they have very 
seldom brought discredit upon their birth-place. Abundant phys- 
ical exercise and the keen air of their native hills, have equipped 
them with a hardihood and vigor that softer and more enervating 
climes deny. 



35 

Stirred by the same restlef^s ambition that impelled our far-off 
anc^^8tor8 — the blue-eyed barbarians of the North — to the con- 
quest of Rome, they have sought fortune and fame in every part 
of our broad national domain — nay, in the uttermost parts of 
the earth. They and those who have f*prung from their loins raav 
be found in the marts of eominerce — in the learned professions — 
in the halls of legislation — in all the arenas of human enterprise 
and activity — successful, powerful, trusted, and honored. Men 
and women of New Hampshire blood are far more numerous 
outside her borders than within them, and their influence has been 
every-where strongly felt. 

I am glad to meet here to-day, living proofs and illustrations 
of the truth of what I am sayintj, and among them mj' young 
friend, who is soon to address you — the lieutenant-governor of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He comes back to his birth- 
place to-day wearing on his brow the honors he has fairly won 
by his untiring industry, his strong common sense, his judicial 
fairness, his solid ability, and more than all else, his unswerving 
honesty — which has never been attacked, unless perhaps by 
some lying thief whom he has balked in schemes of plunder. 

How difficult it is for any of us to realize what enormous 
changes have taken place within the last hundred years. It is 
not exaggeration to say that the human race has mude greater 
progress during that period than it ever did in any thousand 
years preceding it. 

Imagine if you can the astonishment of Dea. William Presbury 
could he come to life to-day. How impossible to explain to him 
how one of us left San Francisco less than six days ago, another 
Philadelphia yesterday, and how another came from l^oston in 
less than five hours to-day. He reads in this morning's newspaper 
a long account of great tires in Calcutta and St. Petersburg only 
last night. He listens to the voice of one of his numerous de- 
scendants, who pays his respects to him through the telephone 
from old Pennacook. He hears of a single corporation at Amos- 
keag Falls that annually makes cloth enough to girdle the eirth — 
and of the great steamers that cross the ocean in six days. He 
sees the hay which was mowed, spread, and raked by machinery. 
He reads with speechless alarm of the thousand wonders wrought 
by the tamed lightning, which he supposed came only from the 
thunder-cloud to burn and destroy. Would he not despise him- 
self as a mere babe in knowledge? Would he not feel like a 



36 

child snrroiindecT by the glittering^ seenes^ of orUmtal enchantment — 
like Aladdin, dazzled and overpowered l)y the gorgeous creations of 
the genie of the magic lamp? Would lie not suspect some new ancS 
unheard-of form of witchcraft — snuff the air for the scent of brim- 
stone, and nervously scan lis from head to foot, fearing to see the- 
hoofs and horns of the great adversary? Doubtless he wouhU 
but yet, that old Purican, desi>lte bis ignorance of modern science 
and art, may have had the head of a sage and the heart of a lion. 
We may well be proud of our aneestoi's, who laid in the wilderness, 
the solid foundations of this great republic, beneath the shelter of 
whose starrv flag 60 millions of souls are working out the gigantic 
problem of popular self-government. 

It is an illustration of the fixity and stabilitv of agi'icultural com- 
munities, that nearly all the first settlers ire represented heie :n 
name or in blood to-day. Here are the descendants of Presbury, 
Davis, Eaton, Hoyt, Swett, Brockway, Brown, Jacobs, and the 
other pioneers of civilization who founded tliis town, and many of 
them live on the same acres that were cleared by the axes of their 
forefathers. 

It has l)een wisely said that happy is the nation whose annals are 
tiresome. The eai*ly annals of this town are tiresome enough to war- 
rant the belief that its founders found here an Klysium. It took 
no part in the French and Indian wars. It was scarcely settled at 
the close of the Revolutionary war yet it vvas well represented in the 
battles which won our national independence, lu the war of 1812, 
it of course did its whole duty, but that duty was by no means a 
conspicuous one. 

In the great civil strife which, in the Providence of God rescued 
our government from the deadly embrace of slavery and cemented 
with patriotic blood that union on which our national future depends, 
this town was by no means backward. One of her honored citizens, 
Mason Weare Tappan, commanded the first regiment that our state 
sent to the field. I cannot think of him without a pang of sorrow 
that he cannot be here with us to-day — that we cannot listen to 
his inspiring accents aid grasp his friendlj' hand. But, though 
he has vanished from mortal eyes forever — though his generous 
heart has ceased to beat, and his eloquent voice is forever hushed, 
he is enshrined in our memories till we ourselves shall be no more. 

To the soldiers who, inspired by patriotism, honorably served in 
that great struggle, we owe an almost boundless debt of gratitude. 
Grateful should we be also to their wives, mothers, sisters and chiL 



37 

drcn. nay, to all who strove or suffered for that glorious cause. 
Never was there a cause more just or momentous to the human 
race. Never was there a victory uiore benetJceut than that which 
bound Nortli and South into one harmonious whole. But for it, our 
country would certaiidy have been broken into bleeding fragments — 
forevei' at war with each other — and we and our descendants for 
many generations, would never have seen the white-winged angel of 
peace, unless she came linked to the iron sceptre of military despot- 
ism. From the unspeakable horrors of long intestine warfare — from 
war-born poverty and wretchedness — from anarchy and the weak- 
ness that would have rendered us an easy prey to foreign invaders — 
the victory of the Union cause in 18(j;i, delivered us and our descen- 
dants, unless blinded hy party spirit, the peoi)le of this countr}' fail 
to appreciate the advantages of union and cultivate discord instead 
of harmony. We have no pro[>hetic vision to peer into the future, 
and what the next century has in store for this town and its in- 
habitants, we cannot tell. But this much we do know — that the 
prosperity of tliis town depends upon the prosperity of our coun- 
try, and that our country's prosperty depends on the preservation 
of our federal union. The South has been freed from what every 
intelligent man now admits to have been a withering curse, and 
which no one wishes restored. Her horizon is illumined by the 
dawn of a prosperity such as she never dreamed of while in her 
bondage to Slaver3\ The cause of dissension between her and 
the North has been plucked up by the roots and burned to ashes. 

The North rallied to arms in 18G1 to compel the South to re- 
main in the Union — to weld two hostile sections into one united 
and happy people with exactly the same rights and duties. For 
that object her soldiers fought, for that she poured out her blood 
like water, and her treasures without stint. Would she have made 
such costly sacrifices to make of the South another Ireland? NO! 
a thousand times, NO ! 

Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since the war ended, 
and a new generation which did not partake of its passions is 
coming upon the stage. Is this the time to fan into flame the 
dying embers of fraternal strife? The plain, honest people of 
this country do not wish it. The men whose courage saved the 
Union do not wish it. He who seeks to flaunt in the face of 
the vanquished South the trophies of our victory and her de- 
feat — to keep alive the animosity which engendered and was en- 
gendered by the war, is willing for party success or selfish 



38 

aggrandizement, to sacrifice the very object for which the Union 
array fought, and to sow the seeds of future dissensions and 
bloodshed. How paltry and purblind the patriotism that reveres 
collections of blood-stained battle-flags as the chief trophies of 
its valor. Its true trophies are such as neither moth nor rust 
can corrupt, nor fire consume, nor the "all-devouring tooth of 
time" destroy. 

This broad country stretching from sea to sea — its beautiful 
flag, the symbol of national power, with not a star blotted out 
nor obscured — a people proud, happy and united in one free 
government — these are the monuments which will preserve the 
fame of the heroes whose prowess saved the Union, when the 
pyramids shall have crumbled into dust. 

Let us pray to the great Ruler of nations that Time may 
heal the wounds mutally inflicted in four years of warfare — 
that love and confidence may take the j)lace of hate and dis- 
trust — that all sections of our country may unite to promote 
national prosperity and individual happiness, to resist if need 
be a hostile world in arms and to eradicate from our political 
life that foul corruption which threatens to destroy by internal 
rot and gangrene, the great republic which the storms of war 
could not dissever. 



ADDRESS 

By Hon. John Quincy Adams Brackett. 



MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CHILDREN OF 
BRADFORD:— 

For, whatever our ages, we are all children to-day, who have 
come home to bring our greetings to our good old Mother Town 
upon this her hundredth birth-day. 

The completion of a century in the life of an individual, a 
town, or a nation is an event that always deserves commemo- 
ration. A public spirited community will never permit it to 
pass unnoticed, whether it occurs to one of their number or to 
them all as a municipal organization. 

The town of Bradford has now arrived at this stage in its 
career. It is one hundred years old to-day. One chapter of its 
history is closed. A new page is turned over, and it enters up- 
on its second century. Its sons and daughters, mindful of its 
past, hopeful for its future, have gathered here to make fitting 
observance of the occasion. We have come cordially to greet 
the living, tenderly to remember the dead. We have come to 
show by our presence our regard for the town and our rever- 
ence for its founders. As we are commanded to honor our 
fathers and mothers, in the spirit of that injunction we also 
honor the fathers and mothers of the town in which we were 
born. The plaudits of posterity are ever due those 

"Who cleave the forest down, 
And plant, amid the wilderness, 
The hamlet and the town." 

We are here to pay our tribute to the pioneers of Bradford; 
to manifest our grateful appreciation of their heroism and self- 
sacrifice in abandoning the abodes of civilization, the pleasures 
and advantages of social life, and consigning themselves to the 
solitude, the pathless forests, there struggling amid hardships 
and privations to establish homes for themselves and their de- 
scendants. 

We are here also to strengthen the ties of kinship which 



40 

ought ever to exist among those who beh^ng, by birth or residence, 
to the same town. It is a rehitionship which may not lie recognized 
by law, but it finds recognition in every well ordered human heart. 
We have a fraternal feeling for our townsmen. It is a manifesta- 
tion on a different scale of the sentiment which unites the people 
of a nation. It is a feeling of which we are, jierhaps, more sensible 
when abroad than when at home. Longfellow, describing in 
"Evangeline" the meeting of the banished Acadiaus in a foreign 
land, says : — 

"They who before were us strangers, 
Meeting in exile, become straightway as friends to each other, 
Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together." 

Who of our number is there that has not felt the force of a sim- 
ilar tie, when, far from here, he has chanced to meet another, un- 
known to him before, it may be, who came from his native town. 
This is a sentiment to be fostered, for it is conducive to patriotism. 
The stronger our attachment to our countrymen, and especially to 
those who dwell in the same part of the country with ourselves, 
the greater will l)e our love of country. This is one of the senti- 
ments which inspires us to-day, and which will be reviewed and 
strengthened by this joyous family reunion. 

History tells us, as has been already stated, that the first settler 
in Bradford was Deacon William Presbury. He came originally 
from Stowe, Massachusetts, and first settled in Henniker. He was 
one of the petitioners for the incorporation of that town in 1768, 
and subsequently held the offices of town clerk and selectman there. 
Having aided in giving that new town a start, he seems, like Alex- 
ander of old, to have sighed for new worlds to conquer, and so 
we find him in 1771 taking his wife and his worldly goods and push- 
ing still further into the wilderness. He came to Bradford and lo- 
cated near the spot upon which the residence of Stephen Morse 
now stands. Here he lived for forty-three years, doing the work 
and undergoing the trials which fall to the lot of the pioneer. He 
died in 1814, and his wife in 1834, and both are buried upon the 
old Burying Hill. Upon Mrs. Presbur^^'s tombstone is the in- 
scription "The first and for two years the only woman in town." 

History, as I have said, credits Deacon Presbury with being 
the first settler. There is, however, another candidate for this 
honor, Isaac Davis, the great-grandfatlier of the president of 
the day. The late Eliphalet Davis, the well known manufacturer, 
of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is cited as an authority for the 



41 

statement tliivt his father, Daniel Davis, was born in Bradford, and 
the date of his hirtli being in 17C>{), this statement, if correct, 
would make Isaac Davis, the father of Daniel, a resident here in 
that yt-ar. The late Mrs. Nathan Piper, who died in 1877 at the age 
of ninety-six, and who was twenty-seven years old at the time 
of the death of Isaac Davis in 1808, also used to say, as it is 
rei)orted, that he told her that he settled here in 1762, and other 
evidence is said to exist to the same effect. On the other hand are 
the statements in all the pubhc histories and gazetteers that VViUiam 
Preshury was the first settler. I have no warrant to decide between 
these conflicting claims, and shall not presume so to do. I merely 
refer to them, leaving it to others who may be interested in inves- 
tigating the matter to solve the question as to which of these two 
brave old pioneers took precedence. 

The town records commence in 178(), the year preceding that 
in which the charter was granted. The record of the first town 
meeting begins as follows : — 

"Bradford, March 27, 178(). Met according to warning. Voted 
Mr. John Brown, M(jderator, to govern the present meeting." 

John Brown was my great-grandfather, and bore the same relation 
to the president of the day. We niay both, perhaps, be pardoned if 
we take a little ancestral pride in the fact that in that primitive peri- 
od the fellow-citizens of our fore- father had such confidence in hia 
knowledge of parliamentary })ractice as to select him to preside over 
their first town meeting. He was the fisrt settler at the "Corner 
Village," his house being near where that of my father now stands. 
The other officers elerted at that first town meeting were P^benezer 
Eaton, Town Clerk ; Nathaniel Presbur^^, Constable ; James Pres- 
bury, Enoch Hoyt, and Isaac Davis, Selectmen ; John Brown, Will- 
iam Clement, and Daniel Young, Committee to settle with the Se- 
lectmen ; William Presbury, Daniel Cressy, and Isaac Davis, Sur- 
ve^'ors of highways. Mr. P^aton was annually elected town clerk for 
many years thereafter, and had the honor of being the first repre- 
sentative of the town in the General Court, being chosen to repre- 
sent Bradford and Newbury, then called Fishersfield, in 1796. 
He kept a public house on the road leading from the Centre to the 
Plain, and was the grandfather of E. H. P^aton. Of the other 
officers named, Nathaniel Presbury was the cousin of William. He 
lived near the Centre where the I'esidence of Allen Cressy now 
stands. James Presbury was the ancestor of Mason B. Presbury. 
Daniel Cressy kept a public house on the W^arner road at the 

6 



42 

corner of that lending to the Pond, and wns the grandfather of 
William P. Cressy. 

At the time this town meeting was held the town had no legal 
existence. The inhal)itants felt the disadvantages of this and the 
next year ]>resented a petition to the General Court, setting forth 
therein that they labored nnder many and great inconveniences for 
want of being incorporated into a town and praying that the town- 
ship of New-Bradford, tr»getlier with a ))art of Washing-ton and a 
part of Washington Gore, so called, might be incorporated into a 
town by the name of Bradford. The petition was signed liy Khen- 
ezer Eaton, Ebenezer Colby, Daniel Cressy, Joseph Preslmry, Ste- 
phen Ward, Nathaniel Presbury Jr., James Presbury, John Brown, 
Abram Smith, Nehr. How. Peter How, Nathaniel Presbury, Enoch 
Hoyt, William Clements, Daniel Eaton, John .Stanley-, Isaac Da- 
vis, Joshua Andrews, Abner Ward, and IMoses Bailey. Ajipended 
to the petition was a request that its praver miofht be granted, 
signed by the inhabitants of that part of Washington Gore included 
in the petition, viz. Samu(d Crane, Martin Brockway, Uzziel 
Batchelder, Asa Brockway, and Simeon Ilildi'eth. 

I have made especial mention of some of these petitioners. It 
would be interesting, if time permitted, to do the same as to all, 
but I mnst limit myself to sa^ung that nearly all the names signed 
to the petition and the api)ended request will at once be recognized 
as those of ancestors of well known families who have been long 
resident in the town and identified with its history. 

In response to this petition the General Court, upon the 27th 
day of September, 1787, passed the act which has been read, in- 
corporating the town. It was made a part of the County of Hills- 
borough, and so remained until Merrimack County was established 
in 1823. 

Deacon Preslmry was invested by the act with the authority of 
calling the first meeting of the inhabitants for the election of ofli- 
cers, and in pursuance thereof he notified them to meet for the 
purpose on the 22nd day of the then ensuing October. This meet- 
ing was held on the day appointed at the house of Nathaniel Pres- 
bury. It is a happy coincidence that the oldest inhal)itant of 
Bradford at this Centennial Celebration, Captain Allen Cressy, 
lives upon the spot where stood the house of Nathaniel Presbury, 
in which that first town meeting was held. We are gratified and 
honored by his presence with us to-day. He is here in the enjoy- 
ment of a vigorous and radiant old age. He is two years the senior 



43 

of tlie ninetcentli century. On the fifteentb day of .June next he 
will have attained to the great age of ninety years. 1 know that 
I voice the hearty feeling of every person in this audience in ex- 
pressing the hope that his life may he sj^ared to enal)le him to 
enjoy that anniversary, and then that it may be prolonged at 
least ten years more, so that on the fifteenth day of June, 1<S!^8, just 
as we are peering over tlie partition wall that separates us 
from the twentieth century, he may meet with us here to cel- 
ebrate his own centennial. 

The record does not state that any moderator was elected at this 
meeting, and it is jjresumed that Deacon Presbury, who issued the 
warrant, presided. Ebenezer Eaton was elected Town Clerk ; 
Daniel C'ressy, Constable ; Ebenezer Eaton, James Presbury, and 
^imeon Hildreth, Selectmen; Deacon Presbury, Reul»en Whitcomb, 
Enoch Iloyt, and "Simeon Hildreth, Surveyors of highwaj-s ; Na- 
thaniel Presbury and Isaac Davis, Tithingmen ; Deacon Presbury, 
Sealer of weights and measures; Nathaniel Presbury, Sealer of 
leather ; Daniel Young and Isaac Davis, Fence ^'iewers ; Daniel 
Cresses Surveyor of lumber ; William Presbury, Isaac Davis, and 
Enoch Iloyt, Committee to settle with the Selectmen. Thus the 
new town was organized and began its municipal history. 

The year in which Bradford was incorporated was a memorable 
one in American history. It was that in which the federal constitu- 
tion was adopted, the centennial anniversary of which event was ob- 
served in Philadelphia ten days ago. Bradford is, therefore, but ten 
days younger than the republic. Our town and our nation both com- 
menced their existence as organizations in the same year and month. 
What a contrast between then and now as regardsthem both. 
Instead of the mighty nation of sixty millions of people in which we 
glory now, the country then consisted of OJily thirteen small states 
on the Atlantic coast, occupying a narrow strip of territory between 
the wilderness and the sea, inhabited by less than four millions of 
persons, destitute alike of mone}', of commerce, of organized gov- 
ernment, of substantial!}' all the attributes of a nation. Wash- 
ington had not yet been elected to the presidency. The south- 
western part of our j)resent national domain was foriegn territo- 
ry, and the great North-west was unexplored and comparatively 
unknown. The railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the cotton 
gin, illuminating gas, the electric light, labor-saving machinery, 
and all the other great inventions of modern times, were, as yet, 
undreamed of. We cannot comprehend the difference between the 



44 

eircnmstances snrronnding us uow twd those of our fathers then, 
nor fully estimate the magnitude of the obsta<:!les confronting them, 
nor the courage and persistency required to meet and overcome tiem. 
As we look back through this long vista of the past, reflections in 
another direction are awakened. The imagination penetrate-^ the 
coining century that stretches out in dim and shadowy outline before 
us. We think of Bradford's second centennial. What will be the 
condition of the town then, and who will be here to take part in 
that celebration? We certainly shall not be. But may we neverthe- 
less be stimulated to do the work of our time, according to our o; - 
portunities and to the light that is given us, as well correspondingly 
as our fore-fathers did theirs, so that when our descendants in tint 
far away future meet to obsen^e the bi-centennial of Bradfonl, they 
may look back to the men and women of our generation ^^ ith the 
same reverence and gratitude whicii we feel for the sturdy pioneers 
of a century ago. 

Having organized their town government, oui- ancestors turned 
their attention to those other subjects which were essential to the 
welfare of the young town. Among them they showed their ap- 
preciation of the importance of religion. The first meeting-house 
was built in 17l)(), and the first town meeting held therein in March, 
1798, The Congregational Society was incorporated in 181 G. The 
new church was erected about the year 1837, and thereafter the 
old meeting-house was used as a town house only. I cannot state 
when the Baptist Society was formed, but it must have been as 
early as 1797, as at a town meeting held that year it was "voted 
not to clear the Baptist Society from the minister tax." Two other 
meeting-houses, the "Pond" and the "Bush," have flourished in 
the past, but services have not been regularly held in them in recent 
years. 

In this connection may be mentioned some of the more impor- 
tant societies that have been formed from time to time for education- 
al, social, and kindred purposes. By an act of the legislature, pass- 
ed June loth, 1811, Stephen Hoyt Jr. and others were incorporated 
as the "Proprietors of the Union Library in Bradford." St. Peter's 
Lodge of Masons was chartered June 20th, 1820. July 1st, 1829 
Bartholoniew Smith and others were incorporated as the "Handel and 
Haydn Society in Bradford." The Bradford Grange was char- 
tered May 22, 1875, and the Odd Fellows' Lodge, Nov. 14,1878. 

Of the public houses, the first was undoubtedly kept by Deacon 
Presbury. Those of Ebenezer P^aton and Daniel Cressy have al- 



4o 

ready been mentioned. At tlie Centre was a tavern called the 
"Punch Buwl," kept bv PLbeuezer Cressy. It had a famons 
sign, u^x^n which was painted a fair yonag lady Avith the word 
"•Teini)erance" beneath the picture. Whether this was the name 
of the young huly or an indication of the pi-incii)les upon which 
the house was conducted, we are not informed. .John Kayniond, 
who married a daughter of Deacon l'resl)ury, was the first pro- 
prietor of the hotel at the Corner, which litly bears his name, and 
which was built early in the century. That at the ^lill Village 
was erected and tii-st kept by the late Squire Jones, about the 
year 181."). The Springs Hotel, which has for man}' years been 
widely known as a health and summer resort on account of 
its noted mineral spring, was built at a more recent date. The 
last hotel built was the 'T'resbury House," which was destroyed 
by fire a few years since. 

The first post ofllce was kept in the hotel at the Mills, and the 
first post master was Hon. Samuel Jones, w!;o also served for many 
years as selectman, and was repeatedly elected representative in 
the General Court. His reputation as a public man was not con- 
fined to Kradfonl. but he was well known and respected throughout 
the state, having held the positions of state senator, president of 
the senate, presidential elector, and other important ])nblie trusts. 
He was born in 17cS6 came to Bradford in ISO!) and died in 18G7. 

A reference to the militaiy history of Bradford should not be 
omitted. Although the town was but sparsely settled during the 
period of the Revolutionary War, it was represented in the pat- 
riot army by Andrew Aiken, Abel Blood, Richard Cressy, Daniel 
Cressy, Abram Currier, Isaac Davis, John Eaton, OtHn French, 
Jonathan Knight, and Abraham Sweatt. Many of the descend- 
ants of these veterans are now living in the town. An event which 
vividly recalled the great struggle in which they and their com- 
patriots took part, occurred in Bradford just 50 years after the 
connnencement of the war. This was the visit of Lafayette in 1825. 
The late Dr. Jason H. Ames, then a yonng physician just com- 
mencing practice, was the chief marshal of the day. Accompanied 
by Captain Allen Cressy, John Harriman, and Bartholomew Smith, 
he rode to the Warner line to receive the old warrior, and upon his 
approach addressed him, sa^'ing, '"Gen. Lafayette, we bid thee 
a hearty welcome to Bradford." The greatest enthusiasm i)revailed, 
and, upon his arrival in the village, old Gen. Abel Blood, arrayed 
in a suit of regimentals, became so transported with emotion at the 



46 

sight of his endeared commander, tliat he flung his cocked hat into 
the carriage, striking Gen. Lafayette in the face, but inflicting no 
serioup injury. Lafayette was taken into the hall of the Raymond 
House and seated upon a platform, and the people were presented 
to him. When Gen. Blood was introduced, Lafayette grasped his 
hands warmly and both veterans burst into tears as the memory 
of the olden time cr-me back to them. Gen. Blood then turned to 
his revolutionary- compatriot, Andrew Aiken, who had annoyed 
him by making light of his prediction that Lafayette would remem- 
ber him, and triumi)hantly exclaimed, "There, old Aiken, what 
do you think now?" Among others ])resented was the late Col. 
Tappan, who, being then a child of eiglit years, was taken b}- Lafay- 
ette upon his knee and held during a part of the ceremony. 

The militia of Bradford had attained to sufficient numl)ers by the 
year 1809 to form two companies. Under date of July 1st, of that 
year there appears upon the records a return of the division of the 
company of infantry, in which it is quaintly stated that at a meeting 
duly held it was " voted to split the company into two, and draw 
the line accordingly, as followeth, all on the west side of the road 
leading from IIills))orough to Sutton, together with Mr. Ebenezer 
Cressy and Mr. Asa Stephens and their households, to belong to 
the west company, and the others to belong to the east company." 
It maj^ be inferred that at this time the population was about 
equally divided by the line of this road. This return was signed 
by Joshua Eaton, Captain. He was the brother of Ebenezer 
Eaton, before mentioned, and the father of Joshua and J. Hill 
Eaton. He was for many years Captain of the 5th Co., 30th Reg- 
iment of the militia, and was subsequently promoted to the rank 
of major, by which title he was familiarl}^ know^n. He died in 
1850, at the age of eighty-two years. Among his contemporaries 
and of about the same age was another prominent militia officer, 
the late Gen. Stephen Hoyt. He was born in Hopkinton in 1709, 
and in his youth removing to Bradford, married Fhebe, the daugh- 
ter of Deacon Presbury, born in 1772, and said to be "the first 
white child born in the town of Bradford." The accuracy of this 
statement of course depends upon the question whether Deacon 
Presliury or Isaac Davis was the first settler. Gen. Ho^'t was a 
man of ability and enterprise, a builder of mills and other struc- 
tures, and a man of influence in public affairs. The remains of an 
old canal upon which stood one of his mills can now be seen by the 
side of the road leading from the Plain to the Springs. Some who 



47 

are present may remember a speech made by him at Bradford 
Pond some thirty years ago, in which he christened that sheet of 
water "Massassechem Pond," in honor of the Indian formerh' living 
upon its shore, and related among his reminiscences, that at one 
l^eriod there was but ofie great coat owned in the two towns of 
Bradford and Kisherslield, and which was loaned from time to time 
to the several inhiiliitants as their necessities required. He lived 
upon the road leading from the Centre to the Phun. in tlie house 
now occupied by liis grandson, Elbridge (4. Iloyt. which is said 
to be the oldest house in town. 

Among the soldiers from Bradford in the war of bS12 were Joseph 
Hartshorn, John Harriman, John I\obl>ins, Hazen Presbury, George 
Smith, Uavid Smith, and P>liphalbt Davis. There may have been 
others, but I have not their names. 

In the war of the rebellion, Bradford has every reason to be proud 
of its re(!ord. According to Fogg's gazetteer the number of sol- 
diers furnished by the town was ninety-seven, of whom fifteen 
were killed in battle or died from the effects of their service. Of 
this number the names of forty-two are given in tlie History 
of Merrimack and Belknap Counties. They are Col. INI. W. Tap- 
pan, 1)k. Cykus M. Fiske, Moses J. Seavey, Willis Ckessy, John 
Lynn, Newton Cheney, John Ciioate, Justus Dunbar, Geouge C. 
Sakoexp, James Hoyt, Henuv Presbury, Franklin Pierce, Frank 
West, Ciiahles M. Gould, jMansel Bixby, Horac e Benton, Joseph 
C. Hoyt, Geor(;e Benton, Savory Cheney, John Eaton, George 
F. Smith, Cyrus E. Jones, P. B. Richards, Henry Hoyt, William 
West, Ezekiel H. Hadley, Ai Hall, Oi Hall, Peter C. Gregg, 
Chas. C. Tappan, Micah C. Howe, Clarence Bailey, David K. 
Hawks, Miner Hawks, George L. Ward, Proctor D. AYard, Levi 
W^ARD, Curtis Davis, Albert Woodbury, Hollis C. Brockway, 
George T. Dunfield, Levi W. Barnes, and Timothy Z. Smith. 

These men were our representatives in the ranks of the loyal 
host which saved the republic and made it free. Privates though 
most of them were, they are worthy of special mention here, and 
are each and all entitled to our gratitude and homage for their 
valor and patriotism, now and forever more. Bradford also had 
the honorable distinction of furnishing the commander of the first 
regiment of New Hampshire soldiers who responded to the call 
of their country in its hour of peril and distress, our lamented 
friend who is so sadly missed to-day. Col. Tappan. His name 
has been already mentioned here and will !)e mentioned again, but I 



48 

should feel that an essential part of my duty was undone if 1 failed 
to pay him raj^ poor trilnite also. He was the schoohnate of my 
mother and the life- long friend of my father. Of all the men of 
Bradford, living or dead, he was the foremost and the most widely 
known. His fame was not limited to his town, county, or state, but 
was national. His residence here made the name of Bradford famil- 
iar in distant places, wliere otherwise it would have been unknown. 
In his youth he enlisted in that grand movement which culminated 
in the liberation of the slave. For six years a leading representa- 
tive in congress, when in the winter of 'GO — 'Gl, rebellion men- 
aced the government, and many were panic-stricken, as the mem- 
ber from this state of the special committee of thirty-three upon 
the state of the country, when the majority reported in favor 
of yielding substantialy all that the Disunionists demanded, he 
joined with Cadwallader C. Washburn of AYiseonsin in a dis- 
senting report, and defended his position upon the floor of the 
House in a speech that attracted the attention of the country and 
received the encomiums of leading men throughout the North. 
History justified the position he then assumed. When Lincoln 
called for troops, he was fitly selected to lead the first detach- 
ment of defenders who went from the Granite State. The reg- 
iment left the State May 2;'), 18G1, and arriving in Washington, 
passed in review before the president, who, sending for its com- 
mander, complimented him as having the best and most thoroughly 
appointed regiment that had thus far reached the capital, and said, 
"Col. Tappan, j^our regiment looks more like war than anything 
I have seen." This historic incident is one which the people of 
Bradford will always remember with patriotic pride AVe all 
deeply deplore that the life of our honored townsman could not 
have been spared until this anniversary. I know the great interest 
he took in it. The last time I saw him was in the Concord station 
when returning from my vacation a year ago, and our conversation 
then was in regard to this ceIel)ratiou. Had he lived to take part 
in it, he would have been the central figure of the occasion, as 
he was in every matter of public interest here. He was a natural 
leader of men, gifted with the large and active brain, the warm, 
impulsive heart, the magnetic power, and the force of character 
which produce leadership. His absence casts a shadow over our 
exercises to-day, relieved, though it be, by the radiance of his 
memor}^ which will ever be tenderly cherished by us all. 

The population of Bradford according to the census taken in 



4!9 

17'86, the year before the mcorporation, was 128. Tlie centre of the 
town then and for many years thereafter was also the centre 
of popuhition. Here was the meeting-house, occupied both as a 
<'hurch and a town house ; here was the first school-house standing 
near it; here was the pound in which itinerant cattle suffered 
durance vile, and the walls of which are still standing ; here 
were the taverns and stores at which the citizens were wont to con- 
gregate for business and social purposes. The opening of the 
roads from Fishersfield through the north part of the town to War- 
ner and Ilenniker, the establisliment of stage lines thereon, the 
■erection of the Bradford Hotel and the Raymond House, the loca- 
tion of the post office at the f-ornier, the building of mills and 
stores in its vicinity, tended to build up the north [lart at the ex- 
pense of the Centre. The first house at the Mill Village was builfe 
by Richard Maxfield, as I am informed by an old resident, and 
was the mansion long occupied by the late Squire Jones. The 
construction of the railroad in 1850 contributed sti I more to the 
growth of the northern villages, and, by the erection of stores and 
dwellings near the depot, to unite them into one. In 1830 the 
population of the town had increased to 1250, and in 1850 to 1341, 
From this time it has steadiW declined, falling off in 1860 to 1180 
in 1870 to 1081, and in 1880 to 950. A similar decrease took 
place during the half century between 1830 and 1880 in all the 
towns of Merrimack County except Concord, Allenstown, Franklin, 
Hookset, Pembroke, Pittsfield, and Wilmot. I presume the same 
is true of a majority of the towns of New Hampshire. It affords 
a fruitful theme for reflection. It is an evidence that the cities 
are growing at the expense of the country towns. The greater 
facilities which the former offer for the acquisition of riches, their 
social features, their activities and excitements, allure the fancy 
of the young, and the retired and quiet life of the country becomes 
monotonous and wearisome to them. Their ambitions are enkin- 
dled. They long to mingle in the busy, hurrying throng, and to 
take their chances at winning the tempting prizes that excite their 
boyish dreams, the deserted homesteads passed in journeying 
over our country roads tell the story of the depopulating effects 
of these aspirations. Standing silent and tenantless, the doors 
closed, the windows boarded up or broken in, the front yard filled 
with weeds and grass, no smoke curling up from the chimney, no 
warmth or light within ; one of these forsaken houses forms a pa- 
thetic spectacle. It fills the mind of the observer with dreamy 



50 

fancies as to the persons who have inhabited it and the scenes of 
which it has been the theater in the past. He pictures in his im- 
agination the youns: couple who there may have begun tlieir wedded 
life, the love and joy th;it centered about their early home, the, 
children who enlivened it with the music of their merry voices, 
the social festivities, the huskings, and paring bees, and quiltings, 
and other gatherings, when neighbors uiet to contribute their friend- 
ly services and have a pleasant time, the thanksgiving dinners, 
with their hea.ily laden tables, when the family, after separation, 
were united again, the bright wedding days, when relatives and 
friends came to liring their gifts and their greetings to bride and 
bridegroom, and those darker days, when the family circle was 
broken and the house was filled again with friends and nieghbors 
tendering their sympathy to those who mourned. The old home 
is now desolate. Its charms, its jo^'S and sorrows, have departed. 
The original occupants are at rest. Their descendants have gone 
to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Tliese scenes are far too common 
in the rural districts of New Hampshire. These districts are being 
drained to swell the current of city life. As the Merrimack, whose 
water power has built up the cities of Manchester, Nashua, Low- 
ell, and Lawrence, and which, after ministering to their industries, 
finally pours its wealth of waters into the sea, is fed by uund)erless 
ri\ulets which issue from the country hill-sides, so the population 
of those cities and others is largely made up of contributions from 
the hill towns of New Hampshire and the other New England 
States. They are contributions which are vastly needed in those 
cities to counteract the evil influences and tendencies which are so 
rife in every metropolis. But while they are so needed, and while 
the rapid growth of the centres of population is deemed an evi- 
dence of their prosperity and of the i)ublic welfare and progress, 
it should not be out of proportion to the growth of the country 
towns. It was said by Jefferson that "When we get piled upon 
one another in large cities, as in P^urope, we shall become cor- 
rupt, as in Europe." The history of municipal government in 
our great cities, their business and social characteristics, the fierce 
struggles for wealth and power, the i)ursuit of these objects re- 
gardless of the means resorted to or of their effect upon the public, 
the defalcations in positions of trust, the chicanery and corruption 
in politics, the vanities and pretensions and shams, which take 
all the heart out of social intercourse ; these afford startling proofs 
of the truth of Jefferson's prediction. To aid in offsetting the 



51 

deteriorating effect of these eonditioiis upon our national life 
and character, the saving intiiienees Uiat emanate from our farm- 
ing towns and villages are needed. John Kiske, in his "American 
Political Ideas," says, ''It will he long. I trust, before the sin- 
pie, earnest and independent type of character that has been nur- 
tured on the Blue Hills of Massachusetts and the White Hills of 
New Hampshire shall cease to operate like a powerful leaven upon 
the whole of American society'." To multiply the examples and 
extend the influence of that ty|)e of character is one of the nation's 
needs to-day. New Hampshire has long been known as a nur- 
sery of strong men. Born and brought up amid the invigorating 
influences of her mountain scenery her bracing air, her lugged 
farm life, her schools and churches, they have gone forth to aid 
in the growth and progress of towns and cities bej^ond her bor- 
ders. What has been a gain to these outside localities has been 
a loss to the state. It is a trite remark that New Hampshire is a 
good state to be born in and to emigrate from. Too many of 
her young men have accei)ted and acted upon that idea. This 
tendendeucy has often been deplored, and with reason ; but how- 
ever much it may be deprecated, however much the young may be 
urged to remain in their native state and give it the benefit of 
their talents and their energies, as long as their fancies are lured 
by the invitations of ambition, it is to be feared that these ex- 
hortations will be of little avail. 

But if they cannot be restrained from going away, may they 
at least be prevailed upon to maintain an active interest in their 
childhood's home. The moral nature of that man who, howevet 
much fortune may smile upon him elsewhere, does not retain a warm 
place in his heart for his native town, is one not to be envied. 
Fortunate are those former residents of Bradford whose privilege 
it is to revisit the tow-n, to maintain a connection with it, to keep up 
their acquaintance with its people. Fortunate are we who are permit- 
ted to be here to-day to join in this celebration, to renew the friend- 
ships of other days, to enjoy the sweet train of tender memories 
that fill the mind amid these surroundings. Our hearts to-day all 
warmly respond to the familar lines of "The Old Oaken Bucket." 

"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 

When fond recollection presents them to view; 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild wood. 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew." 



52 

May one of the effects of this happy festival be to renew 
in the minds of her sons and daughters an interest in Bradford, 
and to induce them, wherever duty may call them at other 
seasons, to make this their annual summer resting-place. No- 
where will you find friends more glad to rejoice with you in your 
prosperity, or more generous with their neighborly sympathy 
and services when adversity and sorrow cloud your sky. The 
Granite State is famed for the beauty and grandeur of its scen- 
ery, and there are few regions within its borders where Nature 
has been more lavish with her charms than here. The stranger 
is always impressed with them. How much greater and dearer 
they seem to us who view them through the magnifying glass 
of old associations and recolleclions. 

While the permanent population of the town may not gain, 
the' yearly visits of its children, who are still loyal to the mem- 
ory of home and kindred, should make it a populous and 
prosperous summer resort at least. 

As we stand to-day upon the dividing line between the old 
century and the new in Bradford's history, as we realize the 
extent of our indebtedness to the town, to its institiitions, its 
influences, its people, for what we are and what we hope to 
be, as we bear in mind how the desire and determination to 
do nothing which could bring any slain upon its escutcheon 
as our birth place has served as one of the motives to right 
conduct, as we remember how much of the brightness that has 
illumined and gladdened our lives has come from its sunshine, 
as we are impressed anew with a sense of its attractions and 
of its hold upon our affections, our sentiments towards the 
dear old place may well find utterance in the words of another 
addressed to his native New England: — 

"Stern land! we love thy woods and rocka, 

Thy rushing streams and wintry glooms, 
And memorj', like a pilgrim gray, 

Kneels at thy temples and thy tombs; 
The thoughts of thee, where e'er we dwell, 
Come o'er us like a holy spell, 

A star to light our path of tears, .^ 

A rainbow on the sky of years." 



DECLAMATION: 

By Allen Cressy, Oldest Citizen of Bradford. 
ON THE DEATH OF GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



The senate of the United States respectfully take leave, sir, to ex- 
press to you their deep regret for the loss their country sustains in 
the death of General George "Washington. This event, so distressing 
to our fellow citizens must be peculiarly heavy to you who have long 
been associated with him in deeds of patriotism. Permit me, sir, to 
mingle my tears with yours; on this occasion it is manly to weep. 
To lose such a man, at such a crisis, is no common calamity to the 
world. Our country mourns her father. The Almighty disposer of 
human events has_ taken from us our greatest ornament and benefac- 
tor, and it becomes us to submit with reverence to Him who maketh 
darkness His pavilion. With patriotic pride we review the life of 
our Washington and compare him with those of other countries 
who have been pre-eminent with him in fame. Ancient and mod- 
ern names are demolished before him. Greatness and guilt have too 
often been allied, but his fame is whiter than it is brilliant. The 
destroyers of nations stood abashed at the majesty of his virtue; it 
reproved the intemperance of their ambition and hid in darkness 
the splendor of their victories. 

The scene is now closed, and we are no more anxious lest mis- 
fortune should sully his glory; he has traveled on to the end of his 
journey and carried with him an increasing weight of honor, he has 
deposited it safely where misfortune cannot tarnish it — where malice 
cannot blast it. Favored of heaven, he departed without exhibiting 
the weaknesses of humanity. Magnanimous in death, the darkness 
of the grave could not obscure his brightness. 

Such was the man whose death we deplore. Thanks to God his 
glory is consummated. Washington yet lives on earth, in his spot- 
less example. His spirit is in heaven. Let our countrymen con- 
secrate the memory of the heroic general, the patriotic statesman, the 
virtuous sage. Let them teach their children never to forget that 
the fruits of his labors and his example are their inheritance. 

The above was a declamation spoken by Mr. Cressy, in his school days, and was a 
tribute from memory to our celebration. 



POEM. 

By Annette M. R. Grassy. 



Throughout the listening ages swells 
Creation's anthem, sweet and strange; 

Its melody of changeless love 

Rings clear through varying chords of change. 

On every handiwork of God 

He writes this key-note of His power; 
On stately aeons of the spheres, 

On insect life of one brief hour. 

The sun remote in lonely space. 
Lives by the life of other suns; 

And in the dust beneath our feet 
The same eternal kinship runs. 

Linked by the golden bond that thrills 
From God to planet, star, or earth, 

Each tiniest product of His hand, 
He draws and holds by tie of birth. 

And we, the children of His care, 
Held closely by that tie divine. 

Securely tread life's hidden way, 

Content, though skies may frown or shine. 

We backward gaze through circling years, 
And note their seeming change and chance; 

The garnered knowledge of the past 
We use as our inheritance. 



55 

The rovmd world yields us revenue; 

All times, all climes glad tribute bring; 
All lands lie open to our feet; 

All seas make paths for wandering. 

And while we claim all Nature kin, 

And widely rove, as ocean free, 
Our birthplace draws our willing hearts. 

As silver moon doth sway the sea. 

And when, with years and honors filled, 

Our fair town mother calls us here, 
And bids us celebrate the day 

That crowns her glad centennial year. 

With joyful reverence we come, 

And on her altars, offerings lay;- 
Tributes of love and tender praise, 

And blessings on her natal day. 

And in the brightness of this hour 

Our wakened hopes and memories throw 

Long lines of light athwart the past, 
The mystic time of Long Ago. 

Far back where fact and fiction blend 

In lines as dim as bounds at sea; 
Where legends bold and fancies fair, 

Forecast the history to be. 

Before the woodman's ringing axe 
Sent shuddering echoes through the hills, 

Or cleft their forest armor deep 
W'ith wounds the healing sunlight fills. 

When smiled the far blue sky above, 

And sun-kissed earth in silence lay. 
Gemmed with the dewy stars of night, 

Clad in the flowery sheen of day. 



56 



Green woods the rounded hill-tops crown; 

Green woods the valleys thickly press; 
Blue lake, and brooks of rippling light, 

Accent the unbroken wilderness. 

In leafy covert crouched the deer. 
Unchallenged prowled the stealthy bear; 

Shy, wild life peopled all the shades, 
And jubilant bird-songs filled the air. 

The echoes of the hills gave back 
The tramp of beast and whirr of wing; 

Shouted the wind's triumphant blast, 
And whispered of the babbling spring. 

Unnoticed turns the wheel of time; 

And, into widespread solitudes 
Comes human life, as closely kin 

As beast or bird, to Nature's moods. 

Threading the tangled forest aisles. 
The Indian marks unerring course; 

To live, he wages war on life; 
With craft he overmatches force. 

Silent as shade of passing bird, 

His light canoe glides o'er the lake; 

From whitening rock, his fitful fires 

On night's dark shield like lances break. 

And ever from the ripening time 

Some vantage ground each new year wins; 
The stir of dawn thrills through the night; 

Myth ends, and history begins. 

Where once the vagrant wigwam fires 
Curled lazy smoke wreaths in the air. 

The settler's ruddy hearth stone glowed. 
And heart and home were anchored there. 



«7 



The wide hfll slopes are flush with light, 
Where stood thick serried troops of trees; 

Where forests wrestled with the storm, 
Ripe grain nods gaily to the breeze. 

The brook that crept wnth timid song 
Beneath dense, overhanging shade. 

Now, dimpling, woos the zephyr's kiss, 
And laughs w-ith sunbeams, uaiafraid. 

Not easily is victory won; 

Defiant natur-e slowly yields"; 
In want and hardship, pain and death. 

Exacts the cost of harvest fields. 

The settler's days brim o'er with toil. 
His nights are thick with lurking fears'; 

Yet sturdily he waits and prays; 

His hopes new blossom with th-e years. 

'Sullen and slow the savage beast 

Retires before the white man's sway; 

Until within his very lair, 

Fearless, the laughing children play. 

The wily Indian meets his doom; 

His empire falls, his race is run; 
And, driven from his father's home. 

He seeks the ever setting sun. 

He early fades from history; 
Some lingering memories unlock 

Oblivion's pages; we recall 
The whispered tale of Old Pete's Rock. 

And linger reverently where 
On shore of Massasecum Lake, 

The chief, sole remnant of his tribe. 
In silence let his lone heart break. 



Only a barren rock remained 

Of heritage once fair and large; 
Yet still his lonely watch-fires shone 

From Old Gile's Hill to far Kearsarge. 

Till death he fed his signal fire; 

To yon fair lake, he held his claim 
Unquestioned; in his memory, 

We call the water by his name. 

Fast fading into fancies vague, 

Dim legends haunt our woodlands still; 
Each step by phantom foot is trod. 

From Haystack grim to John Brown's Hill. 

Long vanished forms, forgotten lives. 
On ghostly trails keep company 

Along the sunny vales that stretch 
From Bible Hill to Sunapee. 

But records clearer shine that form 
Of our forefathers' lives a part; — 

The daring deed, the patient hope, 
The suffering borne by dauntless heart. 

Where, wrested from the granite hills, 
The field its bannered corn uprears, 

And arms its ranks of ripening wheat 
With shming points of golden spears. 

Along our sunny upland slopes, 
That cover Nature's fire-scarred breast, 

We reap the guerdon of their toil; 
Our happy homes are their bequest. 

All honor to our pioneers! 

First settlers of our mother town! 
We render homage to the names 

Of Presbury, Eaton, Hoyt, and Brown. 



Davis and SmitTi, and many more, 
Whose children's children here abide, 
And look on broad, ancestral farms 
With quickened pulse and honest pride, 

U'e almost touch those early lives; 

Our veterans may remember yet 
The martial songs of General Blood, 

The army tales of Abram Sweatt. 

And General Hojt, whose tuneful voice 
Adds sweetness to his fair renown; 

And Ebenezer Cressy, first 

To represent his new born town. 

And one whose life has almost spanned 
The changes of these hundred years: 

Who shared their struggles, helped their growth, 
Lived in their varying hopes and fears, 

Lives in their retrospection still; 

Whose thoughts an old time fragrance shed; 
May crowning years and time's last touch. 

Rest light on Allen Cressy's head. 

And thus with living links we bind 

That far-off past to present days; 
The thick set memories of years, 

Blossom along our common ways; — 

A mingled breath of balm and rue, — 
Perfume of sweet and bitter flowers; 

The lot of one is the lot of all; 

Each day has noon and midnight hours. 

Each life its share of gloom has known; 

Its brimming cup of joy has pressed; 
Has seen the roses of its love 

Grow pale and fade on pulseless breast. 



tt; 



To-day we gaze on fruitful fields, 

On meadow stretches, green and fair;^ — 

The heritage our fathers gave, — 
The harvest of their lifelong eare. 

They taught us how to strive and wait,. 

From fates adverse to win success; 
Their sturdy truth we venerate, 

Their high integrity we bless. 

And holier legacies are ours> 

That deeper yet our pulses thrill; 

We look on stately stones that rise 
Like sculptured lilies, tall and still,. 

O'er low, green beds of silent dust, 
The last embrace of mother earth; 

Where lie the loves and hopes that hold' 
Our hearts more true than tie of birth- 

O sacred earth! with weary hearts 
Thy children come to thee for restl 

Our loved ones slipping from our hold,. 
We've lain within thy faithful breast. 

Perhaps a little, laughing child, 
A tender husband, cherished wife, 

A mother, teaching Heaven's own love,. 
A father, whose untarnished life 

Remains a blest inheritance; 

Who lived to help some other live; 
The worth of honest toil to show, 

The wealth of true good-will to give. 

O'er many a mound the colors wave 
For which our soldiers bravely died; 

A country crowns their sacrifice, 
A nation shares our loyal pride. 



6J 



Our dead are near us still; for death 
Is but a bend in the current swift, 

And Faith's clear light is shining through 
The veil our hands may not \et lift. 

And steadily we make our way 
To where they wait us farther on; 

Their brows with God's near sunlight glow; 
Their feet tread Heaven's eternal dawn. 

Thus filled with hopes and memories, 
The countless years of time roll round; 

The burden of their song the same, 
Throughout creation's endless bound. 

From good, through better, on to best. 

From the clinging dust to the skies above; 

One bond of birth connecting all, — • 
The bond of God's eternal love. 

And ever on the storm-cloud's edge. 
Gleam promised hues of rainbow arch; 

And through the dirge of centuries past, 
Rings future centuries' triumph march! 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT, 

"The Anglo Saxon character — still persistent 
and unchanging." 

By E. Warren Smith. 



MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:— 

A good many years ago I learned a little verse that runs 
like this.* — 

"Of all the countries far and near, 
I count my native land most dear; 
Of all the cities east or west, 
I love my native town the best." 

And it is in this spirit I have come back to you to-day. It is 
true, sir, that I was not born in this town, but I grew to man- 
hood on one of your farms; I received the most of my education 
in your schools; I learned the lessons of faith and hope in your 
churches, and I have buried some of the dearest ones of earth 
in your cemetery: and while I can always respond most heartily 
to the sentiment, "Massachusetts, God bless her!" my heart turns 
loyally back to the old Granite State and my native town of 
Bradford. 

Mr. President, we have met to-day to honor our ancestors of 
one hundred years ago, and it was especially appropriate in your 
committee to honor the parent stock of our branch of the Cau- 
casian race by this sentiment, "Anglo Saxon character." I wish, 
sir, I had the ability to speak to this as it deserves, but you could 
not have assigned me a part to which I would rather answer 
than this. It is true that in this democratic age, whatever may 
be a man's ancestry he wil have to stand or fall by his own 
record; but it is also true that the influence of a noble ancestry 
is of wonderful power in giving us a good "send off" in the race 
of life; and our noble ancestr}'^, going back many centuries, has 
had a wonderful influence in the grow^th of the American nation. 



63 

It was in the fifth or sixth century that the Saxons, a j-owerful 
race from central Europe, crossed the North Sea and conquered the 
Britons, driving part into Wales and Scotland, and, mixing with 
the rest, they held the island for many centuries, and from 
the union of these two races has come our Anglo Saxon race. The 
Saxons were a })ol<], hardy, sea-faring people, always ready 
for a fight, with no law but the law of might; a)id although by 
the standard of this age we should reckon them as barbarians, 
they nevertheless made progress, so that Avhen they were con- 
quered by the Normans in in the eleventh century they retained 
their language, and to-day sixty per <;ent. of the words we use 
are derived from the old Saxon tongue. But it is more of the 
old Anglo Saxon, or English, of one or two centuries ago that 
I wish to speak. Senator Wadleigh most truly said that the 
world had made more progress in the last century than in the 
previous thousand years: and impartial history will record the 
fact that the Anglo Saxon, the English, the Anglo American, 
have done more to benefit the human race than all others com- 
bined. 

I was taught in my childhood to hate the name of English- 
man. One of the nursery rhymes taught me was: — 

"Fie, fee, fo fum; 

I smell the blood of an Englishman; 

Dead or alive I'll have some." 

The reason for this is readily found in the fact that the heroes 
of our two wars with England were then living and gave lone 
to public feeling. Since that time, Mr. President, I have learned 
two things, among others: first, never to adopt others' prejudices; 
and second, never to hate so bad but that I can love afterwards, 
nor love so strongly but that I can hate if occasion comes. 

Since that time the steam engine and the telegraph have come 
to the fi'ont to make neighbors and friends out of nations, who 
were only too ready to kill and destroy. England has done many 
cruel, outrageous things, but she is our old mother, nevertheless; 
and remembering that we, too, haven't always done right, it ill 
becomes us to be too censorious against a parent with whom we 
have so much in common. 

When the fullness of time had come, God sifted all Europe to 
find the seed he planted America with, the largest part coming 
from England; and, when in after years she undertook to chas- 



64 

tise and conquer us, if ever nation was blessed in defeat and hu- 
miliation, hers was that case. 

Since then, England and America, mother and daughter, have 
grown together these hundred years, each aiding the other, and 
neither at the other's expense, till their common language ia 
heard the world over, and their benign influence is a blessing to 
the oppressed of all nations. England will yet give to Ireland 
the rights so long withheld, the same as we gave freedom to the 
African after long years of oppression; and when we drink to 
the health of His Excellency, the President of the United States. 
our next toast shall be, ''Long live Queen Victoria," the noble 
woman who made virtue honoiable and vice disreputable at the 
court of St. James, and has always been our warm and steadfast 
friend. 

There is one feature of the Anglo Saxon character without a 
parallel in any other nation; I refer to the faculty to successfully 
colonize till the sun does not go down on the English flag 
Other nations have attempted the same thing, but it has always 
been at the expense of both parent and child. I would not for- 
get the important part which the Irishman, the German, and oth- 
er European nationalities are taking in our civilization. A race 
that can furnish an Andrew Jackson and Phi). Sherridan, or 
a Sigel and Carl Schurz, will outstrip .us in the race of life 
unless we recognize the fact that "eternal vigilance" is the 
price of all our success. 

The future historian will have no need to go back to Greece 
and Rome for great characters and illustrious deeds, for when 
England can furnish a Cromwell, a Wellington, a Wilberforce, 
and a Gladstone; and America can name a Washington, a 
Jackson, a Lincoln, and a Grant, to inspire the Christian and 
the patriot, the English speaking race will be invincible. 

Mr. Pi-esident, we cannot, if we would, and I would not, if I 
could, put up any bars to make this country other than a 
home for the oppressed of all nations; and it only remains for 
every well wisher of his country to do all in his power to 
make good American citizens of them all, remembering that the 
corner stone of true democracy is, to "do to others as ye 
would that they should do to you." 

The transplanting of the Anglo Saxon to American soil was 
attended with the most marvelous results for good to the hu- 
man race, and the same results are now being attained in the 



transplanting of our tsons and daughters to the great West, 
for in thera, in their new homes, we recognize the highest type 
•of the American citizen and tlie Christian patriot: and we are 
proud to claim tliem as our descendants and our friends and 
members of our common country. 

There is one common enemy to our prosperity and civiliza- 
tion, which good men and wom»^n of the North, South, East, 
and West, must combine to abolish or control, or our sun will 
go down in darkness, I refer to the grog-shop, the pest-house of 
our age, the breeder of political corruption, and the destroy- 
er of our young men. The signs of the times portend that this 
will be the question wliich shall unite the South and the North 
in common defense, and gladden the heart of every Christian 
and patriot in the wide world, in a victory for the right. 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT, 
^'The Physicians of Bradford." 



The person selected to respond being absent, the duty has been 
assigned to the writer. 

Dr. William C. Martin was the first. He came from Weare, 
N. H. and settled just over the line in Sutton, N. H. about 
1794 or 1795, about one half mile from Bradford Corner, a short 
distance only from where Mr. D. Moody Morse, one of the select- 
men, now lives. Por a term of years he was the only physician 
practicing in Bradford, as many aged people in the j^ast have 
testified. Dr. Willim Martin was the father of one of our old- 
est citizens, the late William Martin: and his descendants of 
the third generation, Frank L. Martin and Horace K. Martin, 
well known to the people of this town. 

Dr. Henry Lyman was the next; he came from Warner and 
was noted as a surgeon. 

Dr Jason H. Ames was a former partner and finally the suc- 
cessor of Dr. Lyman. His period of service covered nearly fifty 
years; he was a very faithful and successful physician; his de- 
scendants are well known. 



^6 

Dr. David IVIitchell from Peterf)oroiigl'i settled m Rradford' Cert-- 
tre, practiced about ten years, and died ; be was succeeded by 
Dr. Frederick Mitchell, his brother, liut he did not remain long. 

Dr. Harvej Studley came soon after Frederick Mitchell, livecJ 
and died in the first house west o-f the Sawyer place^ he died Octo- 
ber la, l<s;30, aged forty-one. 

Dr. Calby came frotn HennikerT and lived a year or more in the- 
Eben Cressy house, at Bradford Centre. Dr. Weston was the next,. 
Kviug in the Cressy House about ten years. 

He was succeeded by Dr. George H. Hubbard of Sutton, a grad- 
uate of the Vermont Medical College ; he was- a regimental and brig- 
ade surgeon in the late war, and a skillful and popular physician- 

Dr. David F. Hale died at Bradford, December 7, 1848. 

Dr. Morgan lived about two years in the Mrs. West house. 

Dr. Sticknfey also practiced a sho-rt time in this town. 

Dr. C. M. Fiske lived at the Mills In or twenty years, and had 
an extended practice ; finally moved to Lowell, Mass. where a 
large field of labor was o[)en to him. Dr. Fiske succeeded Dr. 
Doten. 

Next was Dr. Nathaniel Clark, sold out to Dr. J. H. Martin, 
and Dr. Martin sold out to Dr. J. B. Raynes Nov. 1882. 

Dr. Charles A. Carlton sucrceeded Dr. J. H. Ames ; who finally 
moved to Salem, Mass., where he has a lucrative business. 

Dr. John M. Fitz [)racticed here several years luitil his health 
utterly failed. 

Dr. Eben Harriman Davis, son of Samuel Davis of this town, read 
medicine with Dr. George H. Hubbard ; he was a successful and 
popular physician, and a graduate of the Vermont Medical College, 
and settled in Manchester, N. H. He was a great-grandson of Isaac 
Davis, who settled in the east part of Bradford A. D. 1762. He 
went into the army as surgeon of a New Hampshire regiment and 
was brigade surgeon before the close of the war of the rebellion. 

Dr. John Milton Hawks removed from this town and began 
practice in Manchester, N. H. He lives now in Hawk's Park 
Florida. 

Dr. Samuel Woodbur\' Jones, son of Samuel Jones, fitted for the 
Medical College under the instiuctiou of Dr. G. H. Hubbard, was a 
graduate of the A^erraont Medical College, and entered the practice 
of his profession in Manchester, N. H. as a partner of Dr. E. H. 
Davis, and continued with him several years. 

Dr. Diamond Davis, uncle of Dr. E. H. Davis and son of Dan- 



«7 

je'l V)av'i:s and Mary Brown Davis; lived first where William A, 
<Carr now lives. He was a successful physician and suj^eon, 
and practiced many years in Sutton, where he died. 

Dr. SetJj Straw Jones, bix)tiier <?1" Sanuiel W(K)dhury JoucSt grad- 
iiated at the same college. 

Dr. Farley studied with Dr. L3'ma« at tlie Corner. 

Dr. Reul)en Hatch came from Hillsborough and practiced at the 
Mills one year— from IHS7 to 1838. 

Dr. Dotea practiced medicine in Uiwa six years and then went 
to Manchester. 

Dr. Levi Waixi, a native of Bradford, practiced medicine here 
for years; he is now located at Lake Village, N. H. 

Dr. Pascal B. Richards has practiced medicine in town nearly 
twenty-five years, and has performed wonderful cures. 

Di'. J. B. Kaynes has sold out to Dr, Wallace and removed to 
Lebanon, N. H. 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT, 
^'The Past of Bradford contrasted with the Present." 

By Dr. J. M. Hawks. 

MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS :— 

This has been a wonderful town meeting. The Town Clerk must 
have given a legal warning, and all political parties must have 
brought out all their voters. The last "March meeting" I attended 
in this town was in the old "town house" fifty years ago. I 
remember the ring of wrestlers there, and the flat cakes of ginger- 
bread I bought there ; I have never since tasted any cake that seemed 
quite so good as that. This town meeting is a great improvement 
on that one in several respects ; the greatest improvement and the 
most notable and agreeable features in this meeting are the features 
of the ladies ; they didn't vote or go to town meetings when I was a 
boy. 

A century of town history' is a rich harvest field for the histo- 
rian, the orator, and poet. Our orators, historians, and poet to-day, 
as reapers in that field, have done their w-ork so thoroughly that the 
task of those who follow them is rendered Hght indeed ; and we who 
come after as gleaners in the field may well be content if we can 
pick up here and there a scattering stalk or head of grain. 



It is but a little over a century since a dense forest Iffee that on 
Suuapee Mountains yonder, covered this whole region for miles- 
around. Bears, vrolves, and deer roamed over these grounds along^ 
where these village streets now run, with nothing to fear but the 
flint-headed arrows of the Indian linnter. Around this peaceful 
valley stood these everlasting hills in their evergreen mantles of 
hemlock, spruce, and pine ; yoHder the sparkling water of the 
brooks hastened downward to the liver and to the sea ; farther away 
lay the glassy lake, reflecting the sunshine, the moonlight, and star- 
light that fell mi its bosom, reflecting the picture of the bold, 
rock-bound and cedar-crowned brow of Gile's Hill, and the tall 
pines that stood along its southern sandy shore; a veritable mirror, 
before which the wild flowers on its banks made their daily toilet 
in summer time, and modestly blushed at their own beauty and 
loveliness. 

The only traces of human beings in all this waste of woods 
were the faint trail and the unfrequented camping ground of Mas- 
sassechem, the Indian hunter, who lived for a while and finally 
died near the lake and the great rock, both of which bear his name 
to this day. 

But no condition on earth is permanent ; to change is the fate 
of all created things ; and change was about to come over the 
spirit of this quiet dream. Into the heart of tliis thick forest, with 
its damp, forbidding shadows, a man and his family came to make 
themselves a home. We may fancy the glad surprise of the old 
inhabitants on eveiy hand at this new aiTival ; and how the hills 
and the trees stood still in breathless surprise, watching the move- 
ments of this new stranger, as he took up his flint and steel and 
struck the spark into his tinder-box, and kindled the first kitchen 
fire ever built in the wilds of New-Bradford. 

That fire-place was an altar of incense, and the priest at that altar 
tvas our first settler, Deacon William Presbury ; and as the smoke 
rose up through the tree-tops and floated off over the forest, the 
very hills shouted in gladness ; the brooks and lakes rejoiced, and 
all the forest trees clapped their hands for joy. Nature had worked 
and waited for this event for untold centuries, and now the hour 
had struck ; civilized man, the master of the world, had come to 
take possession of his own : and so Bradford became a settled town. 

Other settlers came, and the population increased ; but for fifty 
years there was hard work for them in carving out their farms from 
the primeval woods, and in facing the hardships of pioneer life. 



09 
Instead of the nnis^ic of purlor organs and }Hanos, they heard the 
whirr of spinning wheels and the racket of h)()nis. The}' had no 
time to study books or read news[)apers, and no hooks or papers 
to read, even if they had had ever so iiinch spare time. In couimou 
with the rest of the world, this good old town has made the great- 
est progress in the last half of the century which closes to-day, 
Bradford has given to other towns and other states more able 
men than other states an<l towns have givi'U to her. Former 
pupils in her jMiblic schools are now living in almost every state 
and territory, where, as lawyers, doctors, private citizens, school 
teachers, or merchants, they are helping to sha|)e the destinies 
of great commonwealtlis. liradford, as a New Ham[)shire town, 
has furnished more than her average, or quota, of represent- 
atives and senators in the congress of the United States ; and a 
Bradford boy to-day stands hard by the governor's chair in the old 
Bay State. 

Now glance for a moment at the material condition of this fair 
town. Traversed by tine wagon roads that are lined on either 
side by cultivated farms, with their commodious houses and barns, 
their orchards, gardens, and fields, rich with the golden harvest ; 
pastures with herds of sheep and cattle ; school-houses almost al- 
ways in sight, go where you may ; libraries of liooks containing 
the best thoughts of the greatest and best men who have ever 
walked on this planet ; newspapers fresh every morning, telling 
you what happened tlie day before all over the world ; your terri- 
tory traversed, also, by palai^e cars ready to take 3'ou across the 
continent or to any part of it ; traversed, also, by an elevated 
railway, over which the lightning runs to carry such messages as 
cannot wait for the daily mail ; and to crown all, here sits this 
gem of a village, fairest in all New England, which is the same as 
saying the fairest in all the world — in which every house is the home 
of plenty and luxury, at any rate, where the poorest families have 
more of the comforts of life, and more of the reasonable luxuries 
than the richest families in town had fifty years ago. 



70 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

"The Clergy of Bradford — May their efforts always 
bring peace and good will.'' 

By Rev. Stephen G. Abbott. 



I feel very little like addressing you to-day on the theme a.ssigned 
me on the programme. I feel like speaking of the memories of 
my six years' residence among this good people more than twenty- 
five years ago — memories which come trooping home to ray mind 
in such numbers aod with such power as to preoccui)y my thoughts 
and render any other theme irksome. 

And then as I look around and notice the absence of so many 
whom I have had the pleasure of counting among my dearest earth- 
ly friends, who were for years among my most constant and interest- 
ed hearers, I hesitate to turn aside from their memory to a more 
irrelevant theme. 

But to-day I suppose we must sacrifice our feelings to the pro- 
prieties of the occasion. I do not propose to-day to make any apol- 
ogy for the apparent faiku-es of the preached gospel, for the im- 
perfections of its professors, or the controvercies which have 
marked the history of the Christian church. Nor do I wish to 
enter into any defense of the ministers of the gospel as respects 
their weaknesses and short-comings, I have little indeed to say 
of ministers at all personally : it is the ministry as an institution 
of the great Head of the Church, aud the message they hold by 
the same authority that claims our attention. 

In this light the ministr3^ of the gospel is the most potent of all 
the agencies which uplift a people personally and collectively in 
all the elements that combine to make up the best type of civi- 
lization. This statement has never been disproved and has sel- 
dom been denied. 

The most pure, just, and beneficeut governments, laws, and cus- 
toms, the most peaceful communities, the most general accordance 
of good will and equal rights, the best society, the happiest do- 
mestic relations, the greatest security to life and property, the 
most prosperous commercial and industrial enterprises have, all 



71 

been most generously developed under the patronizing influence 
of the Christian religion administered by its advocates. 

Every form of civilization as a whole receives its character from 
the character of these indivi<lual elements, :ind these elements are 
characterized by the prevailing religion of the people. It needs 
but a glance at wh:it are called pagan tuid half-civilized nations to 
furnish a demonstration of this fact. This connection is clearly 
observable in all Christian nations and communities. 

All the institutions of our civilization as Americans, of which we 
boast as peerless among the nations of the earth, are indebted to 
the all-pervading and i)ermeating influence of the sjjirit and prin- 
ciples, the prohibitions and injunctions of our holy religion. 

When He who was the personation of this religion became 
incarnate, the angels of heaven were commissioned to strike on 
the plains of Bethlehem the glad refrain, "Glor}^ to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace and good will toward men," 

And when He entered upon His public ministration, among His 
first acts was that of calli;jg twelve men from their worldly occu- 
pations to whom He committed essentially the message of the 
angels saying, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel 
to every creature :" and the sound went out through all the earth — 
in Judea and Asia and the surrounding country ; in Italy and the 
islands of the great sea. and in Europe, superseding the barbarous 
systems and practices of the ages, and elevating the people to a 
higher plane of being and character. 

Bounding over the ocean, the welcome news broke upon the 
rock-bound shores of New England, and became the prime element 
in the civilization which made America what it has been and is 
to-day — the queen among the nations and the model of the world. 

Like the enchanting air of Sweet Home, the religion of Jesus 
runs through all the rattling variations of all that |)ertains to us 
as a people. To it are conformed just laws and customs. It is 
recognized in every branch of our literature. It is appealed to 
from the presidential chair, from the judge's bench, and in the 
halls of legislation. Its altar is in our institutions of learding, in 
our families, and in our voluntary associations. 

The services of the minister are every-where demanded; not only 
in the highest assemblies of the people, but at the launching of a 
ship, the laying of a corner stone, the erection of a monument, the 
dedication of a building, at the funeral service and the marriage 
ceremony. It is all-pervasive in its presence and povver to mould 



72 

and purify and elevate. Without the minister of religion no city, 
town, or hamlet, maintains the lofty standard of our civilization ; 
it lapses at once into vii^e and decay : nor does the message stop 
here. Retracing its ste[)S it returns in tiie hands of its !;uml)le 
servants to the lapsed nations of the Orient, and plants its stand- 
ard amidst the darkness that has been sjjreading and deepening 
through the ages, and before the simple story of the cross, the ig- 
norance and superstition, the disgusting vice and barbarous cru- 
elty which has become mighty through the unrestrained liberty of 
centuries disappears. 

The crude systems most noted for spreading vice and cruelty, 
and for laying insupportable burdens upon its devotees, is sup- 
planted by the simplicity of the gospel, and the effete govern- 
ments of paganism are moulded into the beneficent character of 
Christian institutions. 

The world's redemption is hastening on with mighty strides to- 
day through the gospel in the hands of God's ministers. 

With the same ratio of progress that has been attained in the 
past quarter of a century it will be t)ut a few years, comparatively, 
before every nation of the earth, with the islands of the sea will 
become essentially' Christian, and that, through what Paul calls 
the "foolishness of preaching." 

At the close of our last war with Great Britian the credit of the 
government was exhausted, business was stagnant, and want and 
suffering prevailed every-where. It happened in New York one 
Saturday afternoon in February a ship was discovered in the offing, 
which was supposed to be a cartel bringing home our commission- 
ers at Ghent from their unsuccessful mission. Expectation became 
painfully intense as the darkness drew on. At length a boat 
reached the wharf, announcing the fact that a treaty of i)eace had 
been signed and was only waiting the action of our government to 
become a law. The men on whose ears these words fell rushed 
in breathless haste into the city, shouting through the streets as 
they ran, "peace! peace! peace!" P^very one who heard the 
sound repeated it. From house to house, from street to street, the 
news spread with electric rapidity. The whole city was in com- 
motion, men bearing lighted torches were flying to and fro shouting, 
"})eace ! peace ! peace ! But few men slept that night. In groups 
they were gafliered in the streets and by the fire-side, beguiling the 
midnight hour with the story of the war, and congratulations on 
returning peace and the opening prospect before them. 



73 

Thus tlie men wliom God lias commissioned are every-wbere 
souudiug the message of peace to a sin-oppressed world, and 
•every redeemed soul re-echoes the sound, hastening on the glad 
'day when from the rising to the setting sun, and from the river 
to the ends of the earth will be heard in its full consummation the 
old, old song, " (jlory to God in the highest! and on earth peace, 
good will toward men." 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

^'The Fathers and Mothers of Bradford." 

By Edward A. Studley. 



MR. PRESIDENT, NEIGHBORS, AND FRIENDS :— 

This sentiment is one calculated to awaken tenderest emo* 
tions in us all. 

A century ! how much that includes. I had recently a very vivid 
illustration of this, looking, as 1 did, in the face of a man one 
hundred years old. It was an event officially noticed by the 
authorities of the city of Newton, Mass., and when the panorama 
of the long past was unrolled before Mr. Seth Davis, his eye 
indicated unwonted delight and interest. 

The oldest person here can probably recall but part of a 
century. 1 am not here to claim that the fathers and mothers 
of Bradford were perfect men and women, but, living up to their 
convictions, they laid foundations for the essentials in education, 
morals, anil religion. In order to appreciate this in the matter 
of education let us turn to the earliest records of the town. In 
March ]789 — "Voted nine pounds for schooling." 1790 eight 
pounds; in 17'J2 twelve pounds; and in 1797 forty pounds; — a 
large increase in eight years. 

Then in the matter of religion and public worship they were 
equally prompt; for in the year 1790 it was "voted to raise money 
for preaching." They also at this same meeting passed another 
vote, whirh I think would be called quite liberal, even at this day. 
It was this: — "Voted that the people of this town shall have 
such preaching as suits them best, and pay when they have their 
proportion of the money raised." 

10 



74 

1 suppose it is not essontially different in tfie matter of payment. 
At a social meeting December 1st, 1795 it was "voted to give- 
Mr. Benjamin Wood a call to settle as a minister in this town, anc? 
to pay for bis first year's salary forty pounds, and to increase tbe- 
same annually tbree pounds until it reached seventy pounds," 

Here is another vote. At the annual meeting JMarch 14th, 1797,. 
"Voted not to clear the Baptist Society from the minister tax."' 
And at the same meeting, as I read it, it was "voted not to raise 
money for preaching." Whether this was the beginning of volun- 
tary support for the preaching of the gospel in this town, I do not 
know. I find still another record, and I am sure the fathers and 
mothers of the present day have improved upwi it. In 1 790,. 
"voted that the selectmen provide rum for the raising of s bridge^ 
and the men give their time at the raising." The first part is all 
right. Here is another item. Aug. 29, I79() "voted to give vict- 
uals and drink to the raisers and spectators at the raising of the 
meeting-house on the town's cost." 

I am confident such votes could not pass now, or even be 
proposed. I believe the men of that time acted up to the light 
they had, and that on this matter of temperance it rapidly in- 
creases, for among my earliest recollei-tions is an address to the 
sabbath school at the Centre, by a stranger, on this subject ; and 
what I remember, and all I remember of that address is this : 
"Touch not, taste not, handle not ;" and I think that this applied 
to temperance means total abstinence. 

I left this town at so early an age that my personal knowledge of 
most of the homes must be limited. 1 have, however, a very distinct 
remembrance of one home, of which I may speak, and take for 
granted it was, and I hope still is, like most homes iu Bradford. 
The atmosphere and influence in that home, made so by that father 
and mother, was the best legacy an}^ parent can leave a child ; 
gold is not to be compared with it. 

I remember the reverence for God's name, His day. His house 
and its ordinances, the voice of prayer daily ; and when the father 
was taken away, then the mothei commended the family, the 
church, and all good causes in praj'cr to our Heavenly Father. As 
a mother of course in such a home, the conversation was often 
upon themes of grandest import, conncijted with the duties of this 
life, and also intimately connected with the life eternal. 

My memory docs not treasure a single act in life, or word from 
the lips of that father or mother of unkindness or censoriousness 



75 

towards others — only expressioiiS of kindly sorrow for the di- 
vergence of any one from the right way. 

"• i"he Fathers and blethers of Bradford," and of the century 
aiow closed ! Nome are still here charged with the duties of the 
hour; some have so long ago joined the majority, that, to most of 
us, we cannot recall form or features ; some have so recently gone 
that we can almosst clasp the hand, look into the ej'e, and hear 
their voice of kindly greeting — unseen but not unljidden guests of 
this occasion. Can ye hear mortal voices? We bid you welcome 
to these scenes of your earthly labors and sacrifices, and ask that 
when we separate, as the mantle of Eligah fell upon Elisha, so may 
the mantle of jour virtues rest upon us, your children. 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

^'The Schools of Bradtbid." 

By Maj. Samuel Davis. 



This being the place of my nativit}', and having received the 
principal part of my schooling here, I am deepl}^ impressed with 
the thought that a word fitly spoken in response to this sentiment 
would, indeed, be a desirable thing on this occasion ; but how to 
get at it in the moment that is assigned to me is a matter of no 
small difficulty. 

That public schools have been kept in Bradford for a hundred 
years last past is quite natural — a very common-place fact, if 
we limit our reflections to quite modern times ; but when our 
thoughts fly back through the gallery of the ages, and we see that 
during the principal part of recorded history no such thing as 
common schools were known, the question arises, why was it that 
our graudsires, so soon as they had cut away, a little, the prim- 
itive forests and made a clearing, began of one accord to 
tax themselves for school purposes? History is full all along 
down, of the doctrine that the education of the people was not 
onl}^ incompatible with the divine right of kings and the infali- 
hility of the Pope, but inimical to their own peace and safety 
as well. They were told that ideas were subversive of social 
order, and at times there was but a remnant to dispute it. 



7(r 

Thousands of years ago one of the wise men of the East har? 
said, "there is a spirit in a man;" and near two thousand 3-ears- 
ago a man had said (if it be proper to call him a man) "teach- 
all nations." From that time, ho\ve\er, crushed by tyrants and 
persecuted by priests, a spirit of learning was never wanting 
among the masses ; and though it lay fettered at the bottom of 
civil and ecclesiastical government, like Enceiades uuder Etna, it 
now and then made the mass above it (juake by an uneasy change 
of posture. ^ 

Guthrie, the poor peasaiit's son, had come and helped them to see 
that, by public common schools, they could make "of beggars- 
men of power. '^ Cromwell had taught them that kings could not 
be trusted and should not be feared ; the works of Milton and 
Shakespeare had even suggested the thought that there might be 
miraculous conceptions in the iatellectuul, as well as in the spir- 
itual world ; the crusaders had brought the West and the East into- 
social and commercial relations with each other, and chivalry had 
enlightened them in generosity, as well as valor — gallantry, as 
well as religion : for "love of God and the ladies" was enjoined 
on the knight as a single duty. Wellington and Bonaparte were 
each eighteen years old ; the whole world seemed to be upon the 
eve of stupendous events. In two years AVashington would be pres- 
ident of the United States, the boundless expanse of our teritory 
was being traversed and its inexhaustible resources beginning to 
be known. 

Now this bird's-e3'e view — these headlands, suggest something 
of the condition of the world, the trend of home thought, when 
our grandsires first penetrated the wilderness and began their strug- 
gle for their homes, their families and their laws. But did they 
understand their mission? By their acts, their votes — more el- 
oquent than words — they proved that they did. The fact is, the 
old learning was coming back, and this time it would reach the 
masses, and let us thank God and cherish a just pride that our 
fathers received it gladly and cherished it kindly. Schools for the 
children were the songs they sung ; the records leave no doubt 
on this point. 

Though environed by dangers that required them to vote eight 
dollars per month for "minute men," though taxes for the 
building of meeting-houses and the construction of roads and 
bridges were necessarily heavy, they moved right on "centering" 
the districts and voting eight pounds, twelve pounds, and so on 



77 

11}) to thirty or forty pounds a year for school purposes ; and as 
early as 180(5 they Aoled "six lunidred dollars for school-house 
buildino: and repairs." 

"Like the steadfast tower, that nc\er wags its top," tliey stood 
Ity then- schools for their children. 

As a matter of fact our grandsires and granddaines Avere not ig- 
norant, as ihe word went. They belonged to as n()l)l(' a ty|)e of 
yeomanry as the world ever knew, and they marched in tlie fore 
front of (.'hU and r(>ligious liberty, as evinced by a vote in 17!)0, 
when, after assessing a poll tax of two shillings a head for preach- 
ing, they "voted that the people of the town should have the i.tb- 
i:i;tv to have such preaching as suited them best;" and when they 
■■voted that Capt. Ingalls shall lay out his school money where 
he chooses," they recorded their appreciation of the sentiment of 
equal and exact justice to all in the matter of school privileges, 
which it were well, perhaps, for us of the present day to heed. 

Families were large in the early days, and the scliool-houses 
were generally full; but cash and text books were scarce, and the 
oil and the candles sometimes gave out ; but, in that case the boys, 
hatchet in hand, attacked the pitch pine stumps, which were made 
an efficient substitute for "midnight oil;" but these were Longfel- 
low's "idiot boys," and their motto was "excelsiou !" 

Good teachers and learned men were not wanting in Bradford, 
and their works have praised them. Among those who have passed 
through the dark portal, I can recall the names of Gen. Iloyt, 
Smith, Jack.son, Bert. Elisha Eaton, Felch. Barnes, and Drs. Wes- 
ton, K. H. Davis, and J. IL Hubbard. 

It would be impossible to indicate adcipiatcly the resultant good 
that has flowed from the schools of the good old town of Bradford, 
or even to name those who have gone forth to perform their life- 
work, received their earh' training here ; from city and town, from 
the East and the West, from the pulpit, the l)ar. and the med- 
ical profession, from work shoj), engine, and the farm, came a 
great chorus of voices, saying, in language of thankfulness and love, 
"we owe our pre[)aration for work to the schools of Bradford." 



78 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

"The Lawyers of Bradford.'" 
By Henry F. Buswell. 

I regret to say that business engagements here will render it im- 
possible for me to be present at the Bradford Centennial Celeljra- 
tion, on the 27th instant. Were it possible it wonld afford nje the 
greatest pleasure to meet the other scattered children of the old 
town, who, witli its citizens and neighbors, will join in making the 
day a memorable and delightful one, and to jjerform the part I find 
set down for me in the day's exercise. 

But among all the expected speeches, I am sure none could be bet- 
ter spared than that in response to the senriraent which I find set 
opposite my name on the official programme of the da3^ "The 
lawyers of bradford" will be present to speak for themselves, most 
eloquently and fittingly, I am sure ; and after you shall have list- 
ened to the addresses by Senator Wadleigh and my honored friend, 
the Lieutenant-governor ol Massachusetts, I feel that any words 
of another, intended to honor the legal profession or its members, 
would seem weak and superfluous. 

For nearly a century the bar of New Hampshire has been emi- 
nent in integrity and ability, and has spared from its ranks hun- 
dreds of its brethren, who, in every state, East and West, have 
worthily upheld their lofty calling and helped to administer justice 
according to law ; and, certainly, the law3^ers of Bradford have done 
their part to uphold the honor and dignity of their profession. 

Among the figures familiar in my childhood, none remains so 
vivid in reccollection as that of Weare Tappan, who, through a long 
life, worthily maintained the loftiest standard of professional hon- 
or, and, as an accomplished lawyer of the old school, formed a 
comiecting link between the living generation and that which had 
witnessed the forensic triumphs of Daniel and Ezekiel Webster 
and Jeremiah Mason. 

Of his son, the accomplished lawyer, the eminent and useful legis- 
lator, the patrotic soldier, beloved by the citizens of the town that 
was so dear to him, and the state whose servant he was, you can 
but think, upon the day of your festival, how he would have re- 
joiced in it, and how his heart, now as always would have beat as 



79 

one with yours. The snows of biit one winter have fallen upon 
his grave, and it is too soon, while the heart:? he has left are still 
bleeding, to venture ii[)on elaborate eulogies of hiiu. That useful 
and honorable life of near three score and ten years is ende>l, but 
its work remains, and he, 

"Beyond tbe toppliup; crags of duty scaled, 
Has come upon the shiuing table-lauds, 
In which our God hituself is moou and sun." 

Our native state has been the cradle and nursery of great and 
useful men. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, in legislative halls, 
the courts of law, the marts of commerce, the factory, — on the 
peaceful farms or the bloody battle field, they have ))orne their part 
like strong men. New Hampshire, seated on her granite hills, 
ma}'' watch her sons, present or ah.sent, and say, "Other states 
may give their cotton or their gold, other soils may yield the rich 
products of warmer zones, but I have given the nation what is 
more precious than all these, my own children." 

The host of sons wliom Bradford, from her valley among the 
hills, has sent out into the world, may return to the old town on her 
hundredth anniversary, conscious that they have done their part, 
b}^ virtue of their works wrought by brain or hand, in the honor 
w^hich ever^'-where justly belongs to the sons of New Hampshire. 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

"Bradford fifty years ago.'" 
By Mason B. Presbury. 



It is a great pleasure to n\e to be with you to-d;iy. to meet so 
man}' of my friends and acquaintances that for many years I have 
not met before to-day. I see but few of those that were my school- 
mates fifty years ago at the old school-house at <^he center of the 
town. There is a sadness mingled with the pleasure, for as mem- 
ory runs back to my school-boy days, the question arises, where are 
those one hundred scholars that belonged to that school? The few 
are here, but the many have passed over the river; hut since you 
have invited me to respond to the sentiment, "Bradford fifty years 
ago," T will try to picture it as I remember it at that time ; but 



80 

as much of the ground has been traversed by those who Iiave pre- 
ceded me, I shall try to avoid repetition, whieh may confuse 
me a little, but I trust you will not criticise too closely, for 3-011 
know I am a great speech maker. 

Fifty years carries me hack to ui}' boyhood days — eiy;hteen 
years of age ; 1 think at that time there were but few men in 
town whom I could not call by name, and a large proportion of 
them I was well acquainted with. I remember their faces as I 
saw them then. I will give you a list of those who were regular 
attendants at tlie old church, (or town house), at the center of 
the town. From the west part of the town were : John Severance, 
Col. Brock way, Joshua Crane, Amos INIorse, Charles Morse, 
William Shattuck, Mr. Sweatt, Soloman Ingalls, Deacon Short, 
Nicholas Durrell, Stephen Hoyt, S. K. AVest, Z. Jackman, Klisha 
Eaton, and Bartholomew Smith, who took a great deal of pride 
in letting the people know if there Avere any parties in town who 
intended marriage. 

At the Corner, Deacon Joseph Shattuck, David Bagley, 
Isaah Morse, Joseph Morse, John Smith, William Sawyer, John 
Barnes, Nathaniel Presbury, Joshua Jewitt, Dr. Studloy, General 
Stephen Hoyt, Deacon Nehemiah Colby, Daniel Hale, Silas Abbott, 
Almon Styles. At the North, John Brown, John Kiu^ball, Albert 
Chase, Bard P. Paige, Ilufus Fuller, Luther French, Converse Nich- 
ols, Nathan Cressy, John Gilmore, Albert Cressy ; these men with 
their families, (many of them large.) made a larger congregation 
than you see at the [)resent day. These were not the only church- 
going ones, for the Baptist church at the North, the Christian 
at the Mill Village, the Free Will Baptist at the Bush meeting-house, 
all had their share of followers. Who cannot say that these were 
the happiest days for the old town of Bradford. 

Among the most prosperous business men, were Nicholas and 
Daniel Durrill, Major Eaton, Samuel Jones, Nehemiah Knight, 
Nehemiah Colby, Jabez Sawyer, and Cyrus Cress3^ 

When in need you were sure to find a friend indeed by appljnng 
to such men, this I know by experience. Taking the people as 
a whole, they were industrious, prosperous, and happy. I have 
always felt proud of the old town, the place of my birth, and 
my home for sixty-three 3'ears upon the same place where my 
father, one of the first settlers, and one of the petitioners for the 
tow'n charter, and the first selectman chosen in the new town 
of Bradford, built his first rude cabbin, reared a large family, and 



51 

•died at the age of seventy-six j'eats. Pifty yeaTs ago our family 
numbered seventeen, brothers, half brothers, and sisters ; to-day 
I am the onU' one left to tell the story. 

At the Center stood the old town house ; uwtil within sixty 
years it was the business part of the town, containing two stores^, 
•one liotel, tannery, two blacksmith shops, two shoe shops, and a 
potash building, where tons of potash was made auiinally^ but 
'how changed to-day i The town house and hotels have been re- 
•moved to this village, the stores and shops torn ■down, and all 
seems to have gone to decay. 

Fift}' years ago the new church was built for the Congregational 
society. At its dedication the choir numbered about seventy-five, 
under the training and direction of William P. Hoyt, one of the 
most successful and popular teadiers and singers of that day-, and 
the rendering of such pieces as "Old Denmark," and "When the 
Lord shall build up Zion," would do credit to many of the musical 
societies of the present day. 

In comparing the past with the present, how changed ! there are 
but few that remain on the old homestead. In making a trip 
through the south part of the town I found Nathan Knight, George 
Andrews, Capt. Cragg; in the west part, J. II. Eaton, J. Albei't 
Peaslee ; near the Center, Charles P. Eaton, Greeley M. Cressy^ 
Raymond and El bridge G. Hoyt. These are all I can think of, 
there may be others at the east part of the town, that I have for- 
gotten. To-day many of tlie farms are deserted and turned to 
pasturage, where fift\' years ago lived the most prosperous men. 
Like man}' of the towns of the state, the wealth has left the rural 
districts' hill farms and concentrated in the villages, the young men 
not satisfied to stop on the farm, and in their haste to get wealth 
have gone into' different parts of the country until Bradford is 
represented in nearly every state of the Union. Some have suc- 
ceeded beyond their highest expectations, others have come short, 
and perhaps would have been as successful, bad they stayed oil 
the old homestead. 

I see before me Edward iStudley, Jabez A. and Frederick Saw- 
yer, G. M. Cressy, and E. H, Eaton. These are all that 1 see 
who were my school-mates fifty years ago. Memory recalls many 
happy scenes that transpired in those days, that would afl'ord us 
more pleasure in rehearsing by ourselves, than here. I cannot close 
without speaking of some of those men who have not been referred 
to by any who have preceded me, and who were among my best 

11 



S'2 

frieuds : — Elder Hiram Homes, always giving' good coniisel, Dea- 
con Nehemiah Colby, always ready with kind words and a helping 
hand for those in trouble, David Durrell, David Hartshorn, whose 
interest in my welfare, and whose kindness to me can never be 
forgotten while life lasts. 

Five years ago I left Bradford and the old homestead, with its 
associations, and made a home among strangers, where I found 
many friends and kin.d hearted people ; but still the old town of 
Bradford has a hold upon me wiiich, I am sure, can never be broken. 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

''The Men and Women who founded the Church 
in Bradford." 

By \Vm. A. Carr Es(j. 



In the building of any town, city, or nation, there must be not 
only the clearing of forests, the fencing of farms, and the con- 
struction of houses, but a care for the intellectual and moral growth 
of the men and women of that community, and f(jr the religious 
training of the children. 

The men and women who established the church in Bradford 
knew that they could do no greater work. Coming into the wil- 
derness, and with all their strength striving to wring from the soil 
a meagre living, to build homes for themselves and families, they 
still realized that it was a wise and noble thing to do, to build a 
fhurch and dedicate it to the living God, that men might have His 
help in bringing in the reign of truth, justice and righteousness. 

So with faith in God, faith in man, and faith in works, they 
went forth to establish the church, assured that by so doing they 
were helping to make men. women, and children better. And did 
they not build better than they knew ? 

For a hundre'l years, through good and evil report, has not the 
church in Bradford been a ])ovver for good? From out of it to 
many a city home, and on to many a broad prairie have gone strong 
men and noble women, who owe somewhat of their early training 
to the church. They have constructed new homes and established 
tiew churches. Of all the throng, who at first gathered in barns, 
ater in the old church at the Center, and then in this buildiug, not 



83 

one 13 left. Many rest under the shallow of the ehiirches thev 
loved so well. Altbough, perhaps no storied marble comiiieinorates 
their labors or their virtues, yet, winter easts upon their graves its 
wreaths of snow ; they are made fragrant in spring l)y the Ma^'- 
flowers and tlie violet, and brilliant in autumn by the aster and 
the golden-rod. 

Is it not meet on this hundredth anniversary that we sliould bring 
to those men and women our tribute of grateful thanks and kindly 
remen)I)rance? Shall not we, their descendants, and our children, 
and our children's children, rise uj) and call them blessed? 



RESPONSE TO SENTIMENT. 

*'State of Mass., — Of our best she has taken, and to-day 
our hearts are made glad by their presence." 

By J. W. ^lorse Esq. 



MR. PRESIDENT:— 

For the first time during a life of over eight\^ years, I am 
called upon to respond to a toast. 

Sir, while speaking of Massachusetts, I shall have to say some- 
thing of New Hampshire. Our ancestors mostly came from Massa- 
chusetts, and planted themselves among the hills and valleys of 
New Hampshire ; their seed has pioduced a good crop of men and 
women. 

Massachusetts is one of the most noted states of its size of any 
in the Union, celebrated for its learning, enterprise, commerce, 
manufacturies, its statesmen and great men of ahnost all profes- 
sions ; while granting to her all these great and good qualities, shall 
claim she is somewhat indebted to New Hampshire for brains: 
for instance, her greatest statesman, Daniel Webster; her greatest 
lawyer, Jeremiah Mason. We have also sent her some men who 
knew how to keep a tavern, Pason Stevens, at one time the most 
popular hotel landlord in New England, James W. Johnson and' 
George Bell, all New Hampshire men. We of Bradford have 
tried to return our part of the harvest to our ancestral state by 
sending from the school department four lawyers of note, one 
a United States senator, one lieutenant-governor, three doctors, six 



merchants, besides a large miraber of others to ffll honorable andJ 
useful stations from other districts, and sir, I have noticed in a. 
recent Dewsi)ai)er that one of the political parties in Massachusetts^ 
has taken" a New Hampshire man for a candidate for Governor and! 
the prospect is that the other will take' another for Lieutenant- 
governor. 

I believe IMr. President, we all subscribe to the sentiment of the 
toast, that our hearts are made glad by ^he^ presemce of so mcny 
of oar sons and daugliters here to-day. 



HISTORIC STATEMENT. 

By Mrs. Mary Augusta Lull. 



'■'Not long ago a small vase was taken from, the tomb of an ancient! 
Athenian, and about it was the perfume of the roses with which 
It was once filled." 

To-day, we, the sons and daughters of Bradford, come back to 
the town of • our nativity, to join with her citizens in celebrating 
Bradford's one hundred and first birth-day. And as we stand here 
by the tomb of the hurried past, memory touches with her magic 
wand the scroll that binds her records ; and lo ! from out the grave 
of the past there rises blessed memories. Can yon recall them my 
friends? the sights and sounds, the scenes and events of our child- 
hood ? Ah ! sweeter than any roses that ever grew in Athenian 
garden?, and far more beautiful to our childish eyes were the roses 
red and white, damask and cinnamon which, grew in our fathers'; 
and grandfathers' gardens. Do you remember the beds of clover, 
and the fields of buttercups that seemeel like "patches from some 
golden web" thrown over the fresh green fields in June, and the 
delicate forget-me-nots that we exchanged with vows of remem- 
brance? And later, when autumn came, how the asters, golden- 
rod, and sun-loving marigold lifted their regal heads above earth's 
beautifully tinted carpet of leaves, as if adding their crown of, 
glory to the declining year, while out in grandma's garden grew 
the odorous balm, sage, tansy, rosemary, and rue, which grandma 
gathered and hung in the attic for time of need. Out in the woods, 
the sweet-scented woods of pine and hemlock, we gathered beech- 



8^ 

nuts and such delicious spruce gum 1 Down the hill-sides came 
rri,Lirinuring brooks ; and tlirougli the valleys rippling streams of 
water, over which the bovs built dams and bridges, and on which 
they sailed their miniature boats. There were long lanes of "Ca- 
nary-grass" and hard pebbU' roads, over which our young feet, 
bare and brown, tripped and stumbled on our way to the village 
school. The village school ! how we rejoiced at its beginning, — 
cried at its close — at least the girls did. VN^'ith what enthusiasmlfwe 
studied; with what delight we played! '■()!(! liear" was the fa- 
vorite game at the middle of the town. Rouud and round the old 
church we ran, laughing, shouting and singing, until every fiber 
of our being felt the influence of the pure life-blood as it went 
coiusing tliroiigh every artery and vein, sending the rich glow of 
health to lip and cheek, and rousing every dormant energy, so 
that when recess was over, we were ready for nuschief or study. 

That play-ground! it was the vkuv best in town, broad, low, 
and level. There was the old meeting-liouse, unpainted and un- 
kept; in close proximity the new, modern iii stvuctiii'e, and painted 
white. Just beyond, the old church-yard, where we reverently 
wandered by day and shiveriugly shunned at night. Near by, the 
cannon house with its ancient gun ; how eagerly we peered through 
every crack and crevice for a glimpse of this revolutionary relic. 
Near by was the vestry, which was used for church and school ; 
it was for a while Bradford's academy, and so noted that it called 
boys and girls from other towns and states. Between the vestry and 
school-house was the pound buillt of huge cobble-st(mes and sur- 
mounted by great timbers which seemed thex like high battlements. 

A class of large boys attended the winter school — full of mis- 
chief, fond of fun they were ; sometimes in physical force and 
cunning they were superior to the master; such was the case in 
the winter of 1842. They did not like the master, so one noon 
they sent the little ones out with the assurance that ''we should 
never get out if we dinn't go right away." Then they nailed up 
the door and fastened dovvn all the windows Init one ; they left 
the room by this window and valiantly waited for the master — he 
came soon, tried the door and windows — there was no entrance — 
be hesitated, considering, probably, that "discretion was the better 
part of valor," he left soon ; the committ>^e hired another man, 
named Campbell, and the boys sang long and loud "The Camp- 
bells are coming!" At last one came, surnamed Charles ; and when 
the boys found the name of his lady love was Ann Tucker, they 



86 

changed their tune to that of "Old Dan Tucker" Unmindful of 
their songs and ridicule, unmindful of all save duty, he stayed-— 
because the boys had found their master. 

Amid the throng of memories from out the grave of the past I 
hear the sound of the new bell, now softly ringing, now bursting in 
melody, sending its merry clangor far and wide o'er meadow and 
mountain. It called us to God's house for prayer and i)raise ; it 
was a signal bell — the signal of death ! How eagerly we listened 
when, on a week day, we heard it toll — would it be three strokes, 
a pause, and then three more? or would it be three times three, 
thus telling whether man or woman had "passed the bourne from 
which none ever return :" then in slow, measured strokes came the 
age — it was some one's father, mother, brother, or sister, and our 
hearts went out in sympathy to the bereaved. 

But amid all the fond recollections, and more precious than any 
other, aye, it is a golden link binding us closer to heaven — now 
we stand on holy ground, as I'evereutly we utter the words, "my 
mother ! my mother ! How tenderly she cared for us ; how patient- 
ly she toiled for us from morning till far into the night. Clasped 
close to her loving heart, we forgot all our childish griefs, listen- 
iuo- to the sweet songs she sung, while our rocking-chair, swinsing 
backward and forward through the air, kept time to the melody 
of her song. Or at night, when the wind was high, and the rain 
fell fast, we heard her coming up the attic stairs. Ah ! even now, 
sometime, 

In fancy comes my mother, 

As she used in years agone, 
To survey the infant sleepers, 

E'er she left them till the dawn. 
I can see her bending o'er me, 

As I listen to the strain 
That is played upon the shingles 

By the patter of the rain." 

And the fathers — the brave pioneers, who made homes for them- 
selves and their children in a wilderness ! Many of them were of 
limited education, but well informed on all subjects pertaining to 
the general welfare of the town ; and they and their descendants 
have identified themselves with its educational and business pros- 
perity. 



87 

Among the physician were Drs. Stanley-, Ames, and AVeston, 
who were noted |)hvsic'ians ; they healed the sick and helped the 
needy with kind words nnd deeds of charity. Dr. Weston was an 
able writer ; many will remember his poem entitled "The hills of 
JSonth Bradfcnd." He was a Christian gentleman, and his many 
acts of kindness, qnietl^' performed, will never be forgotten. 

Among those who ministered to the siiiritual well-being of the 
citizens, were Kevs. Steele, Page, Thatcher, Kogers, Elder Holms, 
and Elder (iillinghain. 

Again, in the Church at the Center, I seem to stand at the front 
window of the singing seats and watch the congregation as it as- 
sembled, coming from all parts of the town, some in carriages, 
others on foot. From the north came the Carrs, Tappans, Chases, 
Cochrans, Browns, Kimballs, Martins, Wadleighs, Raymonds, and 
'•Morse and Blanehard" with their families. From the west, the 
Dnrrells, Brockways, Sweats, Smiths, Severance, Strattons, Peas- 
lees, Morses, Ingalls, Bryants, Bagle\'s, Everetts, Jackmans, 
Wests, Hoyts, and Captain Eaton's family. From the east, the 
Hartshorns, Hales, Colbies, Knights, Davises, Millens. Sawyers, 
Cressies, Rows, and that genial, kindly man, who was loved b}^ all 
the boys and girls — Joshua Jew'ett, and with him his sister Sally. 

From the south part, the Bntmans, Savages, Ayers, Colbies, 
Fultons, and Amos Morse's family. Nearer the church was Eben- 
ezer Cressy, a citizen honored for his integrity, while his brother 
Cyrus, ''tall and stately as a cedar of Lebanon," interested the 
children with his anecdotes and relics of the revolutionary war. 
And the Shattucks, Lunds, and Bartholomew Smith, who was for 
many years a representative of the town. After tying their horses, 
the men loitered about the church door, while the women exchanged 
bits of gossip in the entry until the bell tolled, then all took their 
seats. The choir, led by the musical Hoyts or Presbies, sang from 
"Watt's Hymns" the old soul-stirring tunes, while sweet Olive 
Hoyt, the General's only daughter, led the bass with the four 
stringed viol; then the clergyman followed with devout prayer, 
and "the word" — as he understood it — commencing, "men and 
brethren ;" The women were usually left out till one Sunday, 
when Abby Fulsome, one of the famous pioneers of the "Anti- 
slaveiy and Woman's Rights Movement," came into our church 
during prayer, and to our amazement, mounted the pulpit steps 
and quietly took one of "the deacon's seats." As soon as the 
minister said "amen," and turned to sit down, she stepped into 



S8 

bis place and began to talk. I shall never forget her attitude or 
his look of surprise. The good man reasoned with her saying "this 
is my pulpit-time and place ;" he might as well have attempted 
to calm the sea in a tempest, for she kept right on. In despair 
the minister called the deacons to his assistance ; they in turn 
tried to persuade her to leave the tlesk, but she only talked the 
faster: then they laid hands on her, when her tongue stopped, and 
she dropped to the floor as if shot, the deacons looked frightened 
and let go their hold, when she was again on her feet, talking 
more enthusiastically than ever. They took hold of her again, 
dragging her down the pulpit stairs and along the aisle into the 
entry, and did not return till they saw her ride away in the carriage 
waiting for her. 

The grand old fathers, with their careful observance of the Sab- 
bath, and their strict ideas regarding sin and its punishment, have 
inspired their descendants with reverential remembrance, and we 
KNOW the world is better for the existence of such men. To the 
names already' given we w^ould add those of two former residents of 
Bradford Center ; the late Albert F. Cressy of Newark, New York, 
and Edward .Studley of Boston, Massachusetts, who, when the old 
church languished and thorns and briars threatened to choke out 
"the roses of Sharon and Easter lilies" — placed their shoulders to 
the wheel and raised God's sanctuary from its ashes. 

Looking back now to our childhood's days; they seem like a 
sweet prelude to the "grand march of life" which we all then an- 
ticipated. How is it to-day? Some have marched to music full 
of harmony, with seemingly few discordant notes. Such have led 
quiet, useful lives in the dear old town; and now "their children 
rise up and call them blessed." Others have kept quick-step to 
jarring, wrangling strains, full of minor chords. Many of the 
Bradford boys have taken high places of honor and trust in town, 
state, and nation. I well remember how the late Mason W. Tap- 
pan, Bradford's favored favorite son, used to sing: — 

"Ho! the car of emancipation 
Rides majestic through the nation. 
Bearing on its wings the story, 
'Liberty, a nation's glory!'" 

On this train Mr. Tappan took passage and rode triumphantly 
into the House of Representatives in Washington. Later, we who 



89 

were boys and girls in 1<S42, rejoiced when we heard that our old 
school-mate, Hon. Bainljridge Wadleigh, was elected United States 
senator froirj New Hampshire. 

Still later, when our fair sister state was looking among her cit- 
izens for a governor, she found in one who was a Bradfoid boy, 
the requisite qualities ; and to-da}' we are honored by the presence 
of Lieutenant-governor Brackett of Massachusetts. 

But the grandest march of all that Bradford boys ever made, was 
when they donned the blue, and, to the music of fife and drum, 
dared to march "into the very jaws of death" to help save our 
countr}^ from anarchy and ruin in its hour of peril. How wear}^ the 
march, how terrible the sufferings, only the old soldier knows. 
Sometimes I know the water you drank w'as putrid and loathesome, 
and your bread black and mouldy. To be sure, at night, when 
without shelter of house or tent, the canopy above you was regally 
magnificently studdied with innumerable stars, placed there by the 
hand of tbe Master Builder and Artist. But clouds intervened, 
shutting out the regal spectacle, shutting out all but the pitiless 
rain on your uncovered heads. Disease and death ever lay in 
wait for you, sometimes facing you boldly in battle array, again 
descending ia hot haste on the fierce beams of the noon-day sun, 
or stealthily lurking in the air of night, filling your blood with 
pestilence and poison, thus helping the bullets in their work of 
death. So I re])eat it, veterans, you have made the grandest, most 
beneficent march of all ; and from henceforth the "laurel crown" 
of victory is yours. Chasten j^our glorious conquest with the 
soldier's noblest virtue — magnanimity to the fallen foe ; for so re- 
united, conqueror and conquered from farthest north through sun- 
ny south, from the Atlantic slope to the far off Pacific coast, to- 
gether shall sing: — 

"The lily may fade, and its leaves decay; 

The rose from its stem shall sever; 
The thistle and shamrock shall pass away, 

But the STARS shall shine on forever!" 

And now all hail! old Bradford, as you take up another cen- 
tury's march. Turn thy waters, oh. Lake Sunapee, and give 
them to the river of the valley that bears thy name, so that upon 
its banks many factories for cotton and wool shall keep the old 
grist and saw mills company. May your borders increase, and 

12 



90 

within them come many worthy, gallant, manly sons, beautiful , wo- 
manly daughters. May you ever thrive and prosper, beloved town 
of our nativity, while the years weave themselves into scores, and 
the scores into other centuries. 

And ye, oh ye everlasting hills, standing around like sentinels 
guarding this beautiful valley, watch, also, we pray thee, over the 
dust of our ancestors, for here for three generations they lie en- 
tombed. Shade of my grandmother, whose baby- voice tirst broke 
the stillness of a savage wilderness ! spirits of our ancestors ! if ye 
are present to-day, listen while we offer to you our tribute of grati- 
tude and love. Sleep on, sacred dust, while the wind chants thy 
requiem, and the silent stars keep faithful watch over your graves. 

Sons and daughters of Bradford, the day is fast passing ; on the 
morrow as we go from this home of our birth — thanks to the hos- 
pitable citizens of Bradford — we shall carry with us pleasant 
recollections of this, "a red letter day" in our lives, and blessed 
will be its memories forever. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The following are a few of the many letters we have received from 
old townsmen and former residents. Did space permit we should be 
most happy to publish all that have been received, as it could not fail 
to be a source of gratification to all who shall peruse these pages. 



Warner, N. H. August, 28th, 1887. 
Centennial Celebration Committee, Bracllord, N. H. 

Gentlemen: — 

Your letter of invitation to the celebration of the one 
hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Brad- 
ford, is herewith gratefully acknowledged. 

It would afford me great pleasure to participate, but my health 
and strength are such that prudence forbids my attendance in body, 
but I assure you that on that day mj-^ mind will dwell not alone upon 
your present prosperit3' and standing as a town, but upon events 
coming within my knowledge, and extending over a period covering 
more than three-quarters of the century just closing to your town. 

My first visit was when a girl in my teens, more than seventy-five 
years ago, in company with others long since laid away. I was 
present at an old-fashioned annual "Muster" of our gallant soldier- 
boys. I was so impressed by the spiiit of chivalry and the martial 
bearing of these brave men, your ancestors — gentlemen — that 
the memories of the day has never left me. The same spirit was 
with all of us to a much greater extent than with the j'outh of to- 
day, or so it seems to me. 

One of the sights of that day was the gallant old General Hoyt 
splendidly mounted and commanding his little army in a way that 
completely captivated our young hearts. At that time your beauti- 
ful village on the river was hardly in existence, a few houses at the 
Centre being the only collection — Since then every year has 
brought you in one way and another more of God's blessings — and 
may you and 3'our children and your children's children continue 
to enjoy them through time marked by many a happy Centennial 
Celebration, is the wish of one who for over thirty j^ears was 
numbered among you, and who in all that time met with naught but 
kindness and love at your hands, and who now in her ninety-fourth 
year wishes you every success and enjoyment in your Celebration. 

S. Sophia Lane. 



92 



Garden City, Kan., Sept. 2i, l88f. 



Charles F. Duvis, 
Messrs. I Horace K. Martin, [ Committee. 



George S. Morgan, 

Gentlemen : — 

I sincerely regret that it is out of my power to accept 
your very kind invitation to attend the one hundredth anniversary 
of the incorporation of the town of Bradford, a town associated 
with my earliest recollections, and endeared to me by many years 
of residence- 

Though not a native of the town, I have always regarded it as 
my real home, and there my early friendships were formed. More 
than thirty years of absence has not weakened the ties that bind 
me to the dear old haunts of my childiiood and youth, nor dimmed 
the warm feeling of friendship for the hundreds of good men and 
women with whom I held kindly intercourse in my earlier days. 

Kothin'j; in life could afford me more sincere pleasure than to meet 
with you on the pleasant September day that I trust is reserved for 
your celebration, to look once more upon the well-remembered 
faces, to exchange greetings and listen to the exercises of thei 
memorable day. Delightful would it be to a toil-worn wanderei" 
like myself to revisit the clear old spots so cherished in memory, 
once more to gaze on the bright streams that wind among your 
hills, the grand mountains that stand around you, and the beau- 
tiful and fertile valleys and verdant hill-sides that comprise youf 
homes. 

I was not aware until the receipt of 3'our welcome letter of in- 
vitation that the good old town was incorporated in the same year 
that our noble constitution was framed, and but ten days after thai 
immortal document received the signatures of George Washington, 
Benjamin Franklin, and the other illustrious patriots who framed 
it. I did not realize that my own short life measured more than 
two thirds of the corporate life of the town. Bradford, with its 
neighboring towns of Sutton, Kewbury, and Warner, all watered 
and drained by Warner River and its tributary streams, constitute 
a group of which any American may be proud to say, "there was 
my birth-place and my earliest home." And the men who first 
fiaade their homes there, and with their bright axes and strong arm^ 



93 

Opetied lip the virgin soil to the sitn, deserve to be held in honored 
memory for all time. 

My own experience of pioneer life under far different circum- 
stances and conditions has taught me how to reverence the men 
who subdued the rugged hills and forests of New Hampshire. 
They were a heroic race such as this world has seldom seen. Stout 
hearts and strong. arms only could have prevailed against the stub- 
born forces of nature that confronted them at every step. P^very 
mile of road which they built cost more labor than goes to the 
grading of ten miles of railroad on our Kansas plains. Every bridge 
was an achievement ; and the first saw and grist mills were things 
to be i^roud of ; the first blacksmith shop was a monument of 
progress ; and the first church and school-house things to exult 
over. 

I well remember the strongly marked features and sturdy forms 
of man}' of those i)ioneers. Their names will never escape my 
memory. The Adamses, Andrews, Ashbies^ Ameses, and Ab- 
botts; — the Browns, Buswells, Blaisdells, Bateses, Brockways., 
Blanchards, and liaileys, — the Cressies, Carrs, Chases, Crams, 
Cochrans, and Coll)ies. — the Davises, Durrells, Danes, Dowlins, 
and Dotens, — the Eatons, Emersons, and Eastmans, — the Frenches, 
Parleys, and Felches, — the Goulds, Gillinghams^ Georges, and 
Grays, — the Ho3-ts, Harts> Hardies, Halls, Howletts, Hawkses., 
Harrimans, and Hows, — the Ingallses, — the Joneses, Johnsons, 
Jewetts, and Jamesons, — the Knights, and the Kimltalls, — the 
Lanes, and the Laws, and the Lunds,— ^ tlie Mosses, Martins, Mar- 
shalls, Morgans, Maxficlds, and Murdoughs, — the Nicholses, the 
Presbies, Peaslees and Perkinses, — the Rogerses, Redingtons, — the 
Smiths, the Tappans, the Wadleighs, Woods, and Ways ; all seem 
to come up before me as I write, and for every one of every name 
I feel a kindly thrill of emoti(>n. But alas ! the names recall 
many dear faces that I shall look upon no more. Tiiey have passed 
over the river to join the majority beyond — and there, I too, must 
soon go with them in the "land of ihe dead." 

Seated here in my pleasant homestead cottage by the svvift-flowing 
waters of the great Arkansas River, where the lines of 88 degrees 
north latitude and 101 degrees of west longitude cross each other, 
just one twelfth part of the earth's circumference, or more than 
2,000 miles north, in the very heart of what used to be considered 
the great American Desert, yet surrounded with all the evidences 
of fertility, with fruits and flowers always in sight, and a city grow- 



94 

ing up like Jonah's gourd, requiring all ray time to supply the edi- 
torials for one of its daily newspapers — I am 3'et drawn strongly 
toward the old home and find mjself indulging in the i:)eusive 
mood, and unconsciously breathing the old refrain: — 
"Way down upon the old Warner River, 
Far far away; 
There's where my heart is turning ever, 
There's where the old folks stay." 

Such, I am sure, is the feeling of every true son of New Hamp- 
share who finds himself far away from the old home of his youth, 
and yet I would by no means be understood as regretting the step 
I took more than thirty years ago, when I voluntarily left the 
old home to cast in my lot with the new. 

I have met with unexpected success, and, also, with severe 
reverses ; but have enjoyed the pleasure of seeing a great and 
prosperous state grow up in the bleak and bare wilderness, and 
of seeing more than a million and a half of people inhabiting it, 
with resources ample for the support and comfort of millions 
more. 

I>ew Hampshire and all New England have contributed pow- 
erfully to this unexampled growth and prosperity, and yet they 
have only grown richer and stronger by the aid they have given. 
New England, is the schoolmaster of the Union — especially of the 
great West — and will always be so. Kansas has drawn but 791 of 
her 1, GOO, 000 inhabitants from New England, and a like small 
number from the other New England states, while she has drawn 
194,000 from Illinois, 109,000 from Iowa, 94,000 from Indiana, 
and 25,000 from Kentucky, with like large numbers from other 
western and southern states ; and they are still coming by swarms 
at the rate of some thousands every day ; yet the few from New 
England are like the leaven we read of, which, hidden in the meas- 
ures of meal somehow leavened the whole lump. 

I would exhort you to keep the old fires bright among the hills. 
Keep the old school-houses in good repair, or replace them with 
new ones, and have no fears that the growth of the West will in 
any way detract from the prosperity of the East. We can soon 
send you the silk, salt, and sugar, as well as the corn, wheat, oats, 
and rye — the beef, pork, and poultry which you may require for 
your crowded and bustling cities; but we shall always want so 
many things in return that we shall still remain your debtors. 

So long as the same flag shelters us, and the same spirit and 



95 

language animates onr hearts, the East and the West will he 
help-mates, and not rivals. 

I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for inflicting niton you so long 
and so prosy a sermon, and will close by the expression of hearti- 
est wishes for the success of your celebration, and for the \)vos- 
perity and happiness of yourselves, your families, and every in- 
dividual that calls the good old town his home. 

Very truly your friend and former townsman, 

L. D. Bailey. 



Cherokee, Iowa, August, 27th, 1887. 

Messrs. Davis, Martin and Morgan : Centennial Celebration Com- 
mittee of Bradford, New Hampshire. 

Gentlemen : — 

I have this day received 3'our kind invitation to be present 
at 3'Our centennial celebration on September •27th next. 

I am very sorry to be obliged through a multiplicity of reasons to 
siy that it is not in my power to comph' with your invitation. 
Ever since I first heard of your intention to celebrate, I have had a 
longing to be present on that occasion. 

It was my fortune sixty years ago the ninth of November last 
to first see the light of day upon a hill-side sloping to the north and 
east, and overlooking that most beautiful little lake, Massasecum, 
whose sandy beach and pine grove, its three little islands and the 
rounded hill-top upon the northern side, and the little trout brooks 
that How into it, are all familiar to my recollections, although over 
forty years have passed since I ceased to be a resident of the town. 

Still a love for my native town and state has never ceased ; and 
now I am forced to say that a little w^armer feeling remains in my 
heart toward my native town than any other spot. 

With her soil mingles the dust of mj^ kindred, and for that reason, 
if no other, she has one spot more sacred to me than any other. 

There are three states in which I have an unsual pride, — my 
native state, the first state of my adoption, Illinois, and the one in 
which 1 DOW live, Iowa, — but as all the states are at jjeace, and in 
harmony with each other, I wull close, with the following sentiment 
to, — "The American Eagle. 

Standing as he does with one fo<it upon the Rocky ■Mountains and 
the other upon the Aleghanies, dipping one wing in the Atlantic, 



96 

the other in the Pacific, sweeping the Gulf of Mexico with his tail, 
and diinlviug fora Lake Superior, — may he ever occupy that high 
and noble position. 

Yours Respectfully, 

Wm. Hale. 



Lost Nation, Clinton Co., Iowa, Sept. 22, 1887. 

Centennial Celebration Comiuittee, Bradford, N. H, 

Messrs : — 

Your invitation, addressed to my father, came into my pos- 
session some time since. I regret very much that no member of our 
family will be able to be present at the one hundredth anniversary 
of old Bradford. I sincerely assure you it would be a great pleas- 
ure to visit the scenes of our childhood, meet the few fiiends that 
are now left to greet us, gaze once more on the grand old hills, and 
see nature as she seemed in our earliest day. Though now far 
removed from our early home, and situated amid the business and 
bustle of the rapidly growing West, the memory of the dear old 
town is ever green. 

M}^ grandfather, Jonathan Morse, was one of the first settlers in 
Bradford, when the spot where your flourishing town now stands 
was one wild waste of timber, traversed l)y no wagon roads, and 
their only means of travel was on horse-back. He lived, however, 
to see the beautiful town spring up in the wilderness. 

My father, Amos Morse, removed to Iowa in 1855, where he 
lived until his death, which occured in 1880. My mother is still 
living, and in her eighty-first year. The family all unite in thank- 
ing you for remembering us after our long absence, and hoping the 
next centennial anniversary will find the grand old town still 
prospering, and with as large a number of patriotic citizens to cele- 
brate the day, as 1 am sure will assemble in honor of this event. 

Yours Respectfully, 

Perkins Morse. 



197 

"SorTH NoK-uTDGEWocK, Mainb, Aug. 26, 1887, 

Messrs. Centennial Celel)ration Committee : — 

Your invitation Is received. It would be a pleasure to 
compl}' and be with you, and j'et a painful one in view of those 
to be missed at your gathering. In fact the dropping out of 
friends began to oppress me befoie leaving, and since that time there 
iias been not a few to pass away. Yet 1 Avould be glad to be with 
you, Init circumstances likely will forbid. Mrs. P. is in the midst 
•of a tyi)h()id fever, and my time is otherwise compromised. I 
trust you will realize the anticipated pleasure and benefit from 
jour gathering. 

Thanking you for the favor of an invitation, I wish j'ou all 
success. 

For the family, 

E. Pepper, 



Stewaktstowx, Sept. 24, 1887, 

Centennial Celebration Committee, of Bradford, N. H. 
Dear Sirs : — 

Your kind invitation to me and family to be present 
at the centennial anniversary of ni}' native town was duly received. 
It would give me the greatest pleasure to reunite with the aS' 
sociates of my \'outh and young-womanhood upon the soil of my 
birth. The faces and forms of those surviving friends, whose 
memory is fostered by many pleasing recollections and golden 
ties, like our own, must be so changed by the processes of time 
as to make us almost unrecognizable to one another, yet, by such 
a meeting we would probably soon be able to identify the most 
altered countenance. Such a meeting and reversion to old events 
must be a happy one indeed. AVould that I could be w^ith you, 
but distance and age forbid the undertaking. Please convey my 
sincere regards to those present, and say that the associations of 
my early life in Bradford will be the last to be effaced from my 
fading memory. If I never meet them again in mortal life may 
there be a glorious reunion hereafter, Avhere the full fruition of our 
hopes are realized. 

Very truly yours, 

Julia A. Davis Flandeus. 

13 



Boone STATio5r, Iowa, Sept. 22, 1887. 

To Charles F. Davis, Horace K. Martin, George S. IMorgariT 

Centennial Committee, Bradford, N. H, 
Gentlemen : — 

It is with sincere regret that I find m^'self nnable 
to accept your kind invitation to be present at the one hundredth 
anniversary of the incorporation of your town, and the home of 
my boyhood. 

Its first settlement having been made in 1771 by my great-grand- 
father. Deacon William Presbui-y, sixteen years previous to its^ 
incorporation, which fact makes this reunion of fonner residents 
of the town, relatives, friends, and their descendants, doubly in- 
teresting to me. 

Bradford one hiinelred years ago, and Bradford to-day, -would 
not be recognized by its incorporators. Then with scant inhab- 
itants and uncultivated lands ; now with iis pleasant farms and 
beautiful villages, teeming with wealth, enterprise, education and 
refinement. The grand old town has been ably represented in Con- 
gress by her sons, who were also among the first and bravest to 
defend the honor of the glorious old flag and all that its stars and 
stripes implied. Bradford! — may her prosperity be as lasting 
as her "Eternal Hills." 

Yours with kind regards, 

Orlando Thatcher Marshall. 



St. Thomas, Ont., Sept. 3, 1887. 

C Charles F. Davis, ") 
Messrs. < Horace K. Martin, > Committee. 
( George S. Morgan, } 

Gentlemen : — 

Your notice of the centennial celebration on the 27th 
of September, at Bradford has been forwarded to me, asking my 
attendance. I deeply regret that owing to pressing business en- 
gagements I cannot be with you. 

We cannot but look back with admiration at the determination 
and perseverence shown by our fathers and mothers one hundred 
years ago. Before them stood a heavy timbered forest, the out- 



m 

gTowlh from a Ibard and rocky, yet fertile soil. They came to Brad- 
ford with small means and but little money, but with what they 
liad, they resolved to clear and subdue those forests and to convert 
them into cultivated fields, rich meadows, and green pastures ; to 
build houses and produce and manufacture every thing necessary 
to make them an independent, self-sustaining people — and it wag 
done. Now do not forget that all that they had was "home pro- 
duction." The same industry and energy would make Bradford 
a garden to-day. I am sorry that I cannot be with you. 

Very truly yours, 

J. P. Marshall. 



Starins, Glen Island, New York, Sept, 19, 1887. 

To the Hon. Committee 

of the Centennial Celebration, 

of Bradford, N. H. 
Gentlemen : — - 

On receiving your kind invitation to be pi'esent on 
Tuesdaj', Sept. 27th, 1887, to celebrate good old Bradford's one 
hundredth anniversary, I am carried back to my boyhood days, 
and tears are brought to my eyes. God bless old Bradford ! it 
is the dearest spot on earth to me ; in it I spent my happiest days, 
and all that is earthly of my beloved parents are sleeping in your 
midst. Well do I remember the scenes of my childhood, free 
from cares and sorrows, enjoying in field and on hill our childish 
sports and watched and cared for by loving parents. There is the 
same old orchard, the same old spring, whose cool and pure water 
often soothed my parched lips. In those days the boys and girls of 
good old Bradford took their full measure of pleasure. The winter 
with its continuous snow storms for months gave them the joyous 
sleigh rides, parties, and other festive occasions. 

The first rays of spring was the signal for making maple sugar, 
and then followed summer work, interlarded at times with fishing 
and berrying, until harvest with its apple paring bees and pump- 
kin pies ended the season. 

For thirtj'-five years I have only occasionly visited the dear 
old town, but in all my travels and ups and downs in life it has 



I0(? 

remained to me always the dearest spot on earth. Si'tnated in one 
of New Hampshire's most beautiful valleys, surrounded, as you say^ 
"by the eternal hills of nature's own protection," and old Kear- 
sarge in the distance, makes it to-day one of New Hampshire's' 
most charming spots. 

But the object of your celebration brings us back to the days 
when it took stout and brave men and women to cast their lot in 
the wilderness, as Bradford was then surrounded by savages and 
beasts of prey. They were God-fearing n^en and women, and with 
His help went to work. Log houses were built, fields planted where 
once only forest and wilderness could be found. We, the descend- 
ants of these brave ancestors should offer up to the throne of 
heaven a silent prayer to their sacred memory. 

My father was born in the year 1780, in the then lower part of 
the town. I well remember when on cold winter evenings we 
gathered around the fireside, he related the early history of old 
Bradford, with its dangers from savages and wild animals. We 
listened to it with open ears and bulging "eyes, of the dangers 
that these brave men and women had to endure to protec^t their 
homes and families. Those were the days that tried men's souls. 

But old Bradford has another source of which she may be prond, 
she has turned out some of New Hampshire's most celebrated men^ 
such as the late Hon. M. W. Ta]ipan,, who held many offices of 
trust with great honor, the Hon. Bainbridge Wadleigh, late United 
States senator, the Hon. J. Q. A. Brackelt, Lieutenant-governor 
of Massachusetts, and Hon. J. W. Morse, state senator. 

The good people of old Bradford have many things to be thank- 
ful for, and I pray that the good Lord in heaven may grant you 
His blessing, that you may enjoy prosperity and long life. 

I am extremely sorry not to be al)le to be present at this great 
event of my dear old native town, but my business engagements 
are such that they will not permit my participation. 

I send good cheer to the good people of the dear old town. 

Very respectfully yours, 

E. R. Abbott. 

One of old Bradford's "boys." 



101 



Pkescott, Wis., Skpt. 20, 1887. 

To Messrs. Davis, Martin, and Morgan, 

Com. of Centennial Celebration, 
hirs : — 

I have tlie pleasure of acknowledging your invitation to 
the ceremonies attending the one hundredlli anniversary of the 
settlement of my native town, and regret that circumstances will 
not admit of my being able to meet with old friends and neighbors 
on that joyful occasion. 

Hoping the day may be in every way enjoyable, 
I remain sincerely yours, 

H. C. jNIarsiiall. 



United States Land Office, Central City, Colorado, Sept. 22, 1887. 

Messrs. Davis, Martin, and Morgan, 
Gentlemen: — 

I received your kind invitation to the celebration 
of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
of Bradford, for which I give you my sincere thanks, and nothing 
would give me more pleasure than to be there, but as that is not 
possible, I must respond l)y letter and assure you that 1 have great 
love for Bradford people for their kindness, hos[)ilality, moral 
worth, and stauncli friendship, which I shall never forget; and also, 
my loved ones that are there entombed — my wife, daughter, and 
son — make their memory fresh to my mind ; and I remember the 
first school I taught sixty-five years ago, when I was about eighteen 
j-ears old, and that was the beginning of a series of eight winters' 
teaching. I remember going through Bradford from Hillsborough, 
seventy years ago, when I was twelve years old, to Fishersfield, 
[now Newbury ] to my Uncle Learh's, and stayed all winter, and 
went across Lake Sunapee in winter ; and I remeinl)er, too, of catch- 
ing trout. I could tell a good deal more of intcri'st about Bradford, 
but it would not be worth while, as you know it, pt-riiaps, better 
than I could tell it. I close my remarks with thanks and love to 
all of E. K. Baxter's Bradford people. 

I will now say to you, as committee, and tlu-ough you to all 



102 

the people of Bradford, that I send my love, aud hope the present 
generation will fulfil their mission as sous and daughters of their 
sires aud grandsires, in like moral worth, and patriotic, noble lives ; 
and that you may be prospered in all good works is the wish of 
your true friend and well=vvisher. 

E. K. Baxter. 



Griggsville, Illinois, Sept. 7, 1887. 

i Charles F. Davis, i 
Horace K. Martin, > Committee. 
George S. Morgan, j 

Gentlemen : — 

I received from you an invitation to attend the cen- 
tennial celebration at Bradford- on the 27th, Inst, for vvhich I 
heartily thank you, and through you, the citizens of Bradford. 

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to meet old friends 
and associates of the dear old town of Bradford. There are mem- 
ories still fresh in my mind of scenes and acts that transpired in the 
good old town, that give me much pleasure to contemplate, and 
were it possible to be with you on that occasion and talk over the 
good and sociable times we then had together, and to see the young 
children [that were then children] grown to manhood and woman- 
hood, and taking their fathers' and mothers' places in conducting 
the business of the day instead of fathers and mothers. But I shall 
be obliged to forego the great pleasure that I should enjoy in being 
with you on that interesting occasion. There are many friends 
in your town, some living, and some that have passed away, from 
whom I have received many favors for which I feel very grateful ; 
and I should be most happy to meet them once more, but my health 
is ver^' poor. I was very sick last winter ; was confined to the house 
ten weeks, and have not fully recovered ; I do not think I could 
stand the journey. I think my son Edwin may be with you on that 
occasion ; he thinks now that he shall go if he can leave his busi- 
ness, I hope he will. I will now stop as I have already written 
more than I have for many months. 

Hoping you will excuse me for taxing 3'our patience so much, 
I will say in conclusion that I am seventy-five years old to-day ; 



103 

this is my birth-day. You have my best wishes for the success 
of the celebration, for a success I know it will be, under the man- 
agement of so competent a committee. Hoping that you will have 
good weather for the occasion, and thanking you again for your 
kind invitation, 

I remain sincerely yours, 

M. E. Baxter. 



Lowell, Sept. 22, 1887. 

Messrs. C. F. Davis, H. K. Martin, and G. S. Morgan ; 
Gentlemen : — 

I have dela^'ed answering your letter inviting me 
to attend the one hundredth anniversary of the town of Bradford 
until this time, in the hopes that I shall be able to accept your 
kind invitation, but I am sorry to say that it will be impossible for 
mQ to do so. It would give me very great pleasure to be present 
and help to celebrate the centennial of the old town of Bradford, 
where I was born, and where I spent the happy days of boyhood, 
and where reposes the dust of my father and mother, my grand- 
father and great-grandfather. My great-grandfather was the sec- 
ond maa that settled in the town of Bradford, and he built the 
second house that was built in the town. How well I can re- 
member the old house ; it stood where Mr. Allen Cressy's house 
stands now. There in the old house my dear mother was born, 
and there I was born ; but the old house is gone and most ol the 
friends and companions of my boyhood. I thank you for the in- 
vitation, and regret that I cannot be with you. My best wishes 
attend you, and may the celebration be a glorious success, and 
may it awaken a renewed interest in the prosperity of the town. 

I remain yours truly, 

H. B. Barnes. 



104 



Bancroft, Gumming Co., Nkp.., Sp:pt, 20, 1887. 

Centennial Celebration Committee, Bradford, N. 11. 
Dear Sirs: — 

Your very kind invitation is at hand, and I can 
assnre you that it would give nie great i)]easure to be present and 
unite with you in your centenuial celebration, for very "dear 
to my heart are tlie scenes of my childhood, when fond recollections 
presents them to view ;" but I am so far removed from them all 
that I shall be able to speak to you only through the medium of 
the pen. Since receiving your invitation, I have in memory re- 
viewed many of the events of my earlier life in the old Granite 
State, and especially in your town, for the Lord has been very gra- 
cious unto me in sparing to me my natural faculties, my father hav- 
ing died when I was quite young, too young to remember him. I 
was, when but a mere child, thrown upon my own resources for a 
livelihood. My fn>t experience was in the employ of Jonathan 
Hoyt, who was at that time liviog on the homestead with his father. 
I received as wages for my lal»or for the season three four-pence- 
ha'penies. I remember it as though it were but last cherry season. 
How that good old lady, whose name was many years, [and I pre- 
sume is until this day,] familiar to every one in connection with a 
little "powder horn" story; how she used to tie one of those spa- 
cious pockets, such as were worn by our mothers and grandmothers 
in those days, around my waist and send me up into the cherry 
trees to pick cherries. When I was about ten 3'ears of age my old- 
est brother. Isaiah, married, and I went to live with him, and re- 
mained with him until I was of age, when I went to Francestown. 
It was while I was living with my brother that I formed the habit 
of smoking, thinking it very manly ; but when my brother found 
it out he broke my pipe and forbid ray using tobacco. Of course 
I felt very much wronged at the time, and have never since then 
used it in any form. After I became of age, and while I was in 
the employ of Dr. Thomas Eaton of Francestown, I resolved with 
one or two others to abstain during the haying season from the 
use of rum, which at that time was considered indispensible, es- 
pecially for laboring men, and finding I was better able to work 
without than with it, discarded its use forever, and now, although 
eighty-one years old last April, I pass for a man of sixty and read 
and write without spectacles. After living nine years in Frances- 



105 

town, where I married uiy wife, I returned to Bradford, where I 
lived until August ]854, when I removed to the tlieu new state 
of Iowa, from which place, after a residence of about thirty years, 
I came to Nebraska, the state wliich embraces the tract of country 
which but a few years ago was known as the great American Desert. 
I wish I could give you a faint idea of liow labor is performed 
in this new country. I cannot help contrasting the i)resent with 
the past in regard to labor-saving machines and the great amount 
of work done with them ; instead of droi)ping corn with the hand 
and covering it with the hoe, the horse planter is used. A year 
ago last spring as I was passing a man's corn field of seventy-five 
acres, I asked him if that was al)out an average sized field for 
this country, and he said he thought it was. I asked him if he 
had a good stand of corn, and he said all but fifty acres which he 
had to replant. He took his team and plauter into the field one 
morning, and the next day about five o'clock the work of replanting 
was completed. The rows were one half mile long. When the 
corn was ripe, instead of hauling it to the barn to be husked even- 
ings and rainy days, it is husked from the stalk in the field and 
thrown into wagons, in which it is carried to cribs holding in some 
instances thousands of bushels ; and instead of being shelled on a 
pod-augar, shovel, frying-pan handle, or other device attached to a 
wash-tub, it is mosth' shelled by horse-power machinery. Instead 
of the hand sickle we have the reaper and binder combined, with 
which a man and his wife can cut and shock two hundred acres 
of grain in a season, the woman driving the reaper, and the man 
doing the shocking. Instead of the scythe, hand rake, and hay- 
rack, we have the mower, haj'-sweep, drawn by two horses, and 
stacker, with which my neighbor and his three boys, aged about 
ten, twelve, and twenty years, put up in one day, this season, 
thirty tons of ha3\ He said a full set of men, in heavy grass, 
would put up sixty tons in a da}'. They stack it in the field, in 
stacks ranging from ten to thirty-five tons. From the east door 
of my daughter's house in the village one can count over one hun- 
dred such stacks without turning the head. Our roads here are 
mostly made without any work at all, but in some low places grad- 
ing is necessary, which is done with a machine worked by three 
men and twelve horses. I rode on one yesterday which was at 
work near the village ; with it they made one half mile of road 
in a day, doing the work of fifty-nine scrapers with as many teams 
and men. I could not help thinking what a contrast between 

14 



lOG 

tliat grader, and the one worked by two men, and used when I 
was a young man. Verily a man must go west to see modern 
improvements. Among other things which come to my mind is 
tlie remembrance of the first wagon brought to the town of 
Bradford, and owned l)y Esq. Raymond; also the one made by 
Peter Cook, and called Cook's quill-wiieel. I could speak of 
many other things, but I fear 1 have already trespassed upon 
your time and patience, and will close by thanking you for your 
kind invitation, and asking to be kindly remembered to all who 
may reniend)er me, especially to my brother Mitchell and family. 
Wishing you a j)leasant time on the 27th, 

1 remain ^ours truly. 

John Mouse. 

P. S. The man that replanted the corn and put up the hay 
was from Nashua, N H., and has two brothers here, all wealthy 
farmers. 



We were unable to publish all the letters received,- but in kindly 
lemembranc e \vc give below the names of those whose letters are 
not })ubli:-hcd. 



Mrs L. F. Upton, Warner, N. H. 

INIason Davis Esq., Cambridge, Mass. 

Miss Addie II. Davis., " 

Thomas M. Davis., " 

William LI. Davis., " 

E. F. Davis., " 

Norman G . Carr. , Concord, N. H. 

J. A. Andrews, firm of Andrews Barker & Co., Boston, Mass. 

Edward W. Baxter., Griggsville, 111. 

William B. Benient , Philadelphia, Penn. 

William Ward. , Stoneham, Mass, 

Mr. & Mrs. N. F. Lund., Concord, N. II. 

Mrs. J. W. Osgood., Stoneham, Mass. 

Mrs. Olive S. Prescott., RiplfJ, Maine. 

Charles M. Prichard, Fitchburg, Mass. 

George W\ Abbott, Somerville, N. J. 

Henry Foster, Newport, N. H. 

Mrs. 8. E. Clement, Hillsboro' Br. N. H. 



107 



N. C. Todd New London, N. II. 

Ezariah Rowe, Goft'slown, N. II. 

Almon Putney and family, Decring, N. H. 

H. A. Cressy, Mancliester, N. II. 

Wm. H. Dole, Dole Fertilizer Co Boston, Mass. 

Sidne^^ J. Dowlin, Ilenniker, N. II. 

Jason Bagley, Nashua, N. H. 

INIiss Abzina Eaton, Sutton, N. H. 

Mrs. James Wilkins, Ilenniker, N. H. 

Mrs. M. Anderson, Lawrence, Mass. 

James H. Dowlin, West Ilenniker, N. H. 

S. F. Lund, Newport, N. H. 

W. C. Sturoc Esq. , Sunapee, N. H . 

F. W. Hale, Ilenniker, N. H. 

Frank L. Griftin, North Sutton, N. H . 

George II. Brockway, Pratt's Station N. Y. 

Hartwell Tuttle, Hancock, N. H. 

Mrs. L. G. Stanley, Salem, Mass. 

Mrs. Augusta W. Brown, Amherst, N. H. 

AV. S. Hart, Hawk's Park, Fla. 

C. R. Andrews Agt. W. A. Woods'Harvester, Lawrence, Kan. 

J. W. Bray, Gloucester, Mass. 

A. B. Jenny, Windsor, Vt. 

Mr. & Mrs. W. S. Richardson, Lowell, Mass. 

P. C. Wheeler Esq. , Warner, N. H. 

Mrs. Almira Shattuck Albee, Claremont, N. H. 

Henry B. Ward, Boston, Mass, 

Frank Bartlett and family, Warner, N. H. 

F. T. Sawyer, ". Milford, N. H. 

E. H. Marshall, Eldora, Iowa. 

H. W. Carter, Lebanon, N. H. 

Corodon Spanldiug, Canton, Mass. 

Chas. P. Pike, Hillsboro', Br. N. H. 

Mr. & Mrs. Obed Kimball, '' " 

Mrs. Lewis S. Crosby, Hyde Park, Mass. 

Mrs. M. F. Gardner, Sunapee, N. H. 

Mrs. H. G. Moulton, Stoneham, Mass. 

Mrs. C. C. Tappan, Warner, N. H. 

Fred R. Felch, Atty., Derry Depot, N. H. 

Joel Ward, Charlestowu, N. H. 

Mrs. Lydia Stone, South Sutton, N. H. 



I OS 



Miss Abbie W. Ingalls, ... Nashua, N. H. 

Mrs. P^meline A. T. Bean, Warner, N. H. 

Mr. & Mrs. E K. Hoyt, Penacook, N. H. 

Mrs. Ellen H Mnxfield, Nashua, N. H. 

C'ol. B. P. l)uri)ee, Manchester, N. H. 

Mr. & iNIrs. Stephen Austin, Manchester, N. H. 

Isaiah Iloyt East Providence, R. I. 

Mr. & Mrs. 1 1. C. Brown, Claremont, N. H. 

Miss Mary D- Andrews, Concord, N. H. 

Mrs. Margaret I'arkhurst, Bedford, N. H. 

Mrs. Asa Sargent, Warner, N . H. 

Mr. & Mrs. Mary J. Brown '' " 

Henry F. Presby , Ilenniker, " 

Mark Pope, . Charlestown, " 

Mrs. H. Spragiie, Boston, Mass. 

Miss Myra I'erkins, Keene, N. H. 

Mrs. Olive II. Brown, ... Stoneham, Mass. 

Augustus Wilson and family, Amherst, N. H. 

Mrs. E. Rowe, Warner, " 

L. A. Presl)y Billerica Mass. 

Mrs. Wm. G. Wilder Clinton, "■ 

Piiel C. Pike, San Francisco, Cal. 

VVm. L. Sweatt, Arlington, IMass. 

James A. Smith, Wilmot Flat. N. H. 

Mrs. D. AV. Kilbnrn, Boston, Mass. 

(jeorge W. Rowe Newport, N. H. 

I ). F. Cressy , Manchester, " 

Mrs. John B. Haudv " 



HYMN. 

Sung at close of Centennial Celebration. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

We bring Thee here, our father's God, 
Ouf tribute warm and deep; 

Where once our sires in vigor trod, 
Where now in death they sleep, 

CHORUS. 

Of Auld Lang Syne we sing. 

Of Auld Lang Syne; 
We'll drop a tear in memory here 
Of Auld Lang Syne. 

Hard by their graves the altar grew, 

A temple large and free; 
And here in joys and sorrows true, 

They paid their vows to Thee. 

CHORUS. 

And this till death their only fold. 

Thy praise their only aim. 
Through summer's heat or winter's cold 

The long procession came. 

CHORUS. 

But now, O Lord, not here they call. 

Nor throng nor sacred fane; 
To-day these graves alone of all 

That busy scene remain. 

CHORUS. 

But o'er their dust we pray that we 
May touch Thy garment hem; 

And the same voice acknowledge Thee 
That bids farewell to them. 

CHORUS. 

And since our sires through all the past 

Were safe to rest or roam. 
We trust our fathers' God at last 

WiiJ bring their children home. 

CHORUS, 



no 



The Hills Of South Bradford. 

By Dr. Weston, a former resident of South Bradford. 



The Hills of South Bradford, how nobly they rise, 
Unequalled in grandeur, unrivalled in size, 
On the west noble Sunapee raises his brow 
And calmly looks down on the valleys below. 

Hence onward outstretching to Henniker line, 
They rear their proud summits and splendidly shine 
As they catch the first gleam of the sun's early ray, 
Or throw back his light at the close of the day. 

Across these broad highlands 'tis pleasant to roam, 
Where the cattle and sheep find shelter and home; 
In groves which now shelter the partridge and hare, 
Where once prowled the wildcat and ravaged the bear 

While ages successive of white men and red 
Have risen and flourished and sunk to the dead; 
Everlasting these hills! here they stand and have stood 
On their granite foundations unchanged since the 
flood. 

And still as the torrent ot ages rolls on, 
When all now alive, to oblivion have gone, 
These hills in their glory yet here will remain 
And send down their streams to enliven the plain. 

And when the last trumpet its clangor shall sound. 
And flames all unearthly the globe shall surround; 
Oh, then it must happen, but never before. 
That the hills of South Bradford, shall flourish no 
more. 



